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COFIRiGHT DEPOSITS 



America Entangled 

By JOHN PRICE JONES 

Introduction by 

ROGER B. WOOD 

(Former U. S. Assistant Attorney in New York) 




Price 50 Cents 



432 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



Office of 
Theodore Roosevelt 

February 27, 191 7. 
My dear Mr. Jones: 

I have read the galley proofs of your book, and I wish to 
say, with all emphasis and heartiness, that you are doing this 
country a great service in publishing it. 

Your statements are evidently for the most part based on 
official Government records, happening in the course of prose- 
cuting the various criminals, who by the direct instigation of 
the German Government, have for the last two and one-half 
years been using this country as a base for war against the 
Allies, and more than this, have in effect been waging war 
on us within our own boundaries, no less than on the high 
seas. Our people need to know certain of the facts that you 
set forth. They need to understand that Germany has waged 
war upon us, and has waged war against our property, and 
has waged war against the lives of non-combatants, including 
women and children, and therefore a far more evil war than 
one waged openly. Our people also need to understand what 
you so clearly set forth that very much of the pacifist move- 
ment has been directly instigated by German intrigues, and 
paid for by German money, and that the entire pacifist move- 
ment in this country, during the past" two and a half years, 
has really been in the interest of German militarism against 
the rights of small nations, and against our own honor and 
vital national 'interests. 

You have 'done a capital work, and I wish it could be put 
in the hands of all good Americans. 

Sincerely yours, 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

Mr. John Price Jones, 
"The Sun," 
New York. 



America Entangled 

The Secret Plotting of German Spies in 

the United States and the Inside 

Story of the Sinking of 

the Lusitania 






BY 

JOHN PRICE JONES 

With Introduction by 

ROGER B. WOOD 

Former U. S. Assistant Attorney in New York 



PUBLISHED BY 

A. C. LAUT 

286 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



A 



f 



Copyright, 1917 

BY 

John Price Jones 
Agnes C. Laut 



, 



MAR 101917 

>CLA457438 



THE WILLIAM G. HEWITT PRESS 
Brooklyn, New York 






$ 



TO 



F. S. J. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I America ; The Background of the War . 13 
II Captain Franz Von Papen, Director of 
Germany's Military Enterprises on 
the American Front . . .25 

III Captain von Papen, Buyer of Passports 

and Promoter of Sedition . . 62 

IV Von Igel and Koenig, Two of the 

Kaiser's Faithful Workers . . 77 

V Captain Karl Boy-Ed, The Emperor's 

Social Dandy and von Tirpitz's Jackal 99 
VI Captain Franz von Rintelen, German 

Arch-Plotter .... 126 

VII Captain Franz von Rintelen (concluded) 147 

VIII HOW THE LUSITANIA WAS SUNK . .163 

IX Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, Germany's Bag- 
man and Blockade Runner . . 179 
X Ambassador Dumba, Germany's Co-Con- 
spirator ...... 201 

XI Germany's Lobby in Congress . . 212 

XII Changing the System .... 221 



INTRODUCTION 

WHEN the German note announcing that the Imperial 
German Government intended to resume with greater 
vigor its ruthless submarine warfare was handed to 
the Secretary of State of the United States, a crisis in the 
affairs of this Nation was abruptly precipitated. The President 
met that crisis with courage, with promptness and in a way that 
merits, and has, the unqualified support of every American who 
is proud of his citizenship. 

After the receipt of such an insulting note it was unthinkable 
that the United States could longer remain on friendly terms 
with a Nation that deliberately returned to wanton murder of 
innocent non-combatants, including women and helpless chil- 
dren. 

The conduct of the Imperial German Government in striv- 
ing to win a war by means (which barbarians would hesitate to 
use) begun by that Government without just cause and pursued 
by riding rough-shod over a much smaller and much weaker 
Nation, has been condemned by every civilized country, and it 
will be many years before the German people recover from the 
shame and degradation into which they have been plunged. 

Germany will have to repent in sackcloth and ashes for 
a long, long time before it is received again into the Family of 
Nations. 

In prosecuting the war, Germany and her allies have pro- 
ceeded from the beginning upon the theory that "the end 
justifies the means" and acting upon that theory have held 
in supreme contempt the rights of neutral nations. 

From the beginning of the war, subjects of Germany, resi- 
dent in the United States, have continuously violated our laws 
in the most outrageous and flagrant manner. 

At the very threshhold, they sought to use the United States 
as a base from which to supply the German raiders in the 

vii 



South Atlantic and to that end, by fraud, obtained from the 
collectors at various ports of the United States legal clearances, 
thus subjecting every ship which lawfully cleared from any 
United States port to seizure by the Allies. 

Next, they sought and obtained, by fraud, and false swearing, 
passports to be used by German reservists in returning to Ger- 
many, traveling under the guise of American citizens; thus 
placing in danger the lives and liberty of honest Americans 
traveling with legitimate passports and entitled to the protec- 
tion of this Government. 

Because the Allies were able to purchase in the United 
States munitions of war, foodstuffs and all other supplies they 
might need and were able to transport them and because the 
United States did not at the behest of the Imperial German 
Government, stop the sale and transportation of the supplies, 
which its citizens had a perfect right to sell and transport, 
German residents devised the inhuman scheme of making 
chemical fire bombs and infernal machines to be placed on 
ships carrying passengers and supplies, with the deliberate 
intent and purpose that the ships should be crippled or sunk 
in mid-ocean — it mattered not to them that all on board might 
find a watery grave. 

Numerous attempts have been made to equip men of the 
most desperate character with necessary explosives and other 
implements of death and destruction and have them go from 
the United States into Canada, our friendly and respected 
neighbor, to destroy railroads, canals, ships, warehouses and 
factories without regard to human life. 

Agents have been sent to the United States with unlimited 
money at their command to engage gunmen and thugs to 
blow up our munition plants and factories — many explosions 
have occurred — many lives have been lost — much damage has 
been done — I cannot say who caused such wholesale murder to 
be committed, but I have the right as you have, to suspect. 

It is a matter of record that the German Military Attach^, 
Captain Franz von Papen and the German Naval Attache, 



Captain Boy-Ed, knew of and sanctioned some of the con- 
spiracies above referred to — perhaps the German Ambassador 
did not know of them; but it will be hard to convince a hard- 
headed, common-sense American citizen that he did not know 
what his right hand and his left hand were doing in such a 
crucial period. 

Murder has followed murder on the high seas, one crime 
came fast upon another in the United States, and now we are 
told that this Government must do as the Imperial German 
Government directs; or murder on a more colossal scale will 
be the result. The people of the United States have not taken 
orders from any Government since 1776 and the German 
murderers ought to have known we would take none now, least 
of all from a Government that had forfeited its right to the 
respect of any civilized nation. 

The President and his * advisers have been patient, most 
patient — realizing, no doubt, that "War is Hell." The American 
people have approved all that Mr. Wilson has done and to-day 
they are with him to the last man — if there is to be war, so 
be it — better war than the cold blooded murder of any more 
of our citizens. 

"America Entangled" will give you some small conception 
of what the Germans in the United States have been doing 
since August 1, 1914. Its Author has followed their nefarious 
plots very closely and he has an intimate knowledge of his 
subject. 

Its purpose is to let the American people know the danger 
that lurks within; to sound the alarm so that every man may 
be on his guard; to show the grave necessity for preparedness 
against a foreign foe, and particularly numerous alien enemies 
within our borders. 

If it serves in a small measure to accomplish its high aim, 
its author will be amply repaid because he will have rendered 
a great service to humanity and above all to our Country, 
which we love more than all else, save God. 

Koger B. Wood. 



FOREWORD 

THERE have been two kinds of German propaganda. One, 
devoted to setting before the American people Germany's 
side of the war, may be classed as legitimate. The other 
has been illegal and criminal. While both are set forth in this 
narrative, the greater space has been devoted to illegal activities. 

The author claims for this book no other distinction than 
a plain unvarnished statement of facts — vital, dramatic, absorb- 
ing facts of the manner in which secret agents of the Teutonic 
governments, acting under orders of authorized directors, have 
attacked the very integrity of our national life, commercial, 
social and politic. It contains facts arranged from an Ameri- 
can viewpoint by an American who considers it his duty to 
present them to his fellow Americans. 

These facts were obtained by the writer as a reporter on 
The New York Sun who devoted a year to no other work. 
They were derived by a pains-taking investigation and where 
flat statements are made they are based on knowledge obtained 
by the author from various authorities and from the examination 
of documents some of which have never been published. Th^y 
show how German agents sought to subvert the aims of our 
government to the advantage of the Central Powers. They 
furnish a glimpse of the manner in which these men and 
women sought to make America the hinterland for the European 
War; how they planned and executed bribery, arson, felonious 
assaults; how they plotted destruction of property and even 
murder on American territory. 

These facts emphasize the need of a new kind of prepared- 
ness. They prove that not only does the nation need prepared- 
ness in arms on both land and sea against a foreign foe but 
also defense against those within our bounds, who are eager 
to betray us. No true American, whether he be pro-Ally, pro- 



German, or strictly neutral, can read this book without realizing 
the thoroughness and the perfection of the German espionage 
system and, being convinced of the way in which Germany's 
spies have overrun the entire country, and must appreciate the 
necessity for preparedness to cope with these men and this 
system in a different guise in the event of still graver issues. 

John Pkice Jones. 
January 1, 1917. 



CHAPTER I 

AMERICA: THE BACKGROUND 
OF THE WAR 

AMERICA has been the great background 
of the European War. Though far 
removed from the trenches with the play 
of artillery and the heroic charges, this country 
has been the scene of an equally dramatic, though 
silent struggle — a battle not visible to the eye. 
It has been a conflict of wits, of statesman pitted 
against statesman, of secret agent striving to 
outdo his opponent of a belligerent nation; for 
in America, agents of Germany have been striv- 
ing for a twofold aim. They have sought to 
enmesh the United States in an international con- 
spiracy and to use this country as the means of 
a rear attack on the Entente Allies. 

And New York has been the center of it all. 
In several of the huge office buildings that make 
the thoroughfares of the city seem like canyons, 
Germany had, and still has, the headquarters of 
a vast nerve-like system radiating throughout 
the country. The nerve coils are composed of 
thousands of secret agents located in every city 
and town. These men have worked under orders 
from Berlin in the execution of a series of cam- 

13 



paigns designed to be of service to the Teutonic 
Allies. Against these men have been pitted 
agents of the American government, all aiming 
to detect the schemes and frustrate any plans for 
the violation of our neutrality laws. 

A diplomat, famed for his finesse and grace of 
manner, was at a reception given to distinguished 
statesmen, talented business men and attractive 
women. The conversation was turned to the 
topic of spies. One woman wished to know if 
the diplomat had encountered any spies. 

"Well," remarked the diplomat, "I used to 

stop at the Hotel Grandeur, but Count " 

(mentioning the name of a diplomat of a nation 
with which his country was at war) "persisted 
in having my baggage searched every day. So 
I moved to the Hotel Excellency; but I found 
things no better there." 

"Didn't you complain to the management?" 
"Ah, no," answered he gravely, "but every 
time the Count stops at the Hotel Elaborate, I 
have his baggage searched, too." 

Perhaps the diplomat was not serious, but in 
days when the destiny of nations was at stake, 
it was likely that he was speaking none too lightly 
of a game that had doubtless cost him many an 
hour of the keenest anxiety. 

Of all secret service systems, the most elaborate 
and machine-like is Germany's. It has been or- 
ganized not merely to gather information, but 
to trample upon the laws of the United States, 

14 



to do anything to hinder any project of the 
enemy's. Constructed in the hours of peace with 
the utmost care and foresight, it was easily ex- 
panded in the United States at the outbreak of 
the war into such a vast network that if a repre- 
sentative of the Allies suddenly retraced his steps 
or halted suddenly when around a corner, he was 
almost sure to bump the shins of a German spy. 
Germany, always methodical and thorough, pos- 
sessing a genius for moulding a multitude of 
details into an effective whole, had prepared her 
secret service system with the same efficiency with 
which through scores of years she had equipped 
her military forces for battle; indeed, her secret 
service was a part of her military forces. 

The system is based on the principle of "Lass 
die linke Hand nicht wissen was die rechte tut" — 
"let not the left hand know what the right is 
doing." So thoroughly is this maxim followed 
that two German spies may be working side by 
side and not be aware of the fact. Though groups 
of Germans may engage in some activity with a 
thorough understanding of the aims of another, 
still the order of silence is rigorously enforced. 
The agents hand their information to a superior, 
who in turn transmits it to somebody higher up. 
One spy knows only the person or group of 
persons with whom he directly deals, sending 
information along devious and hidden routes up 
to the final assembling point. 

Germany's spy system has been the sword hand 

15 



of her statesmen and her diplomats. When this 
war is over and the world learns of the moves, 
counter-moves, and Machiavellian methods of 
German diplomats, with their intrigues, secret 
understandings, and their daring attempts to 
force this country into dangerous situations, 
people will realize more clearly than to-day what 
a marvelous system has been behind many seem- 
ingly casual developments in this country. It 
will be shown how German agents have violated 
our laws to gain secret information for Ger- 
many's good; how her secret agents have com- 
mitted crimes in order to coerce diplomatic 
negotiations. 

RAMIFICATIONS OF UNDERGROUND PLOTS 

So perfectly organized and so responsive to 
the slightest suggestion from Berlin is the Amer- 
ican branch of the Kaiser's secret service that vast 
undertakings — some legitimate, many in viola- 
tion of American laws — were carried out. 

The magician, who invented the wireless, 
enabled the German General War Staff to move 
to New York. The splash and splutter of elec- 
tricity over oceans and continents virtually trans- 
ported Germany's leading statesmen, tacticians, 
and scientists at will to hold sessions in Manhat- 
tan on matters arising in America and bearing 
on the battle-front in the many theatres of actual 
warfare. For instance, how many people know 
that the secretary to one of the generals on the 

16 



Western Line was a brother to one of the most 
notorious woman plotters in America? Germany 
had foreseen the possibilities of the wireless in 
war and had developed secret methods of sending 
code messages by radiogram, when apparently 
only ordinary messages were being transmitted, 
and she had also, some way or other, got possession 
of the code ciphers of other nations. Every night 
messages have been sent out from Germany, 
apparently blindly, addressed to no one and have 
been picked up by hidden receiving stations in 
America and other countries. 

While Germany calls her spy system "a bureau 
of intelligence," its purpose is confined not merely 
to the gathering of information, but to the carry- 
ing out of any campaign that will be harmful to 
the enemy. In the United States, Germans — 
reservists, army officers, representatives of the 
German Government — have been indicted for 
crimes against Federal laws. These violations 
were committed without doubt in a self-sacrific- 
ing spirit with the aim of helping the Fatherland. 
Germans, or German influences, have been behind 
schemes in violation of neutrality laws and re- 
straint of trade. They have attempted arson, 
bribery, forgery, engaged in military enterprises, 
caused explosions in ships and factories, resulting 
in many deaths, and have set fires in ships and 
factories. 

They have participated in plots against Can- 
ada, Ireland and India, all developed in the 

17 



United States under the supervision of the Ger- 
man representatives of Berlin, though often 
ostensibly carried out by anarchist tools. The 
activities of the German agents, multitudinous in 
detail and variety, all have been designed to 
hinder the Allies in their prosecution of the war, 
to cause a breach between the Allies and the 
United States, to embroil this country in a war 
and to accomplish other secret aims of the Gen- 
eral War Staff. In all the propaganda, German 
secret agents and official representatives of the 
German Government have had no regard for the 
laws of America, but, in fact, have sought to 
place the United States in a position of being 
secretly unneutral. 

But the German Government has officially 
denied that she ordered any of her subjects to 
undertake any act in violation of American laws. 
Shortly after President Wilson in his message to 
Congress bitterly attacked the activities of Ger- 
mans and German- Americans in America, accus- 
ing the latter of treason, the German Govern- 
ment authorized the statement that it: 

"Naturally has never knowingly accepted the 
support of any person, group of persons, society 
or organization seeking to promote the cause of 
Germany in the United States by illegal acts, by 
counsels of violence, by contravention of law, or 
by any means whatever that could offend the 
American people in the pride of their own 
authority. If it should be alleged that improper 

18 



acts have been committed by representatives of 
the German Government they could be easily 
dealt with. To any complaints upon proof as 
may be submitted by the American Government 
suitable response will be duly made. * * * Ap- 
parently the enemies of Germany have succeeded 
in creating the impression that the German Gov- 
ernment is in some way, morally or otherwise, 
responsible for what Mr. Wilson has character- 
ized as anti- American activities, comprehending 
attacks upon property in violation of the rules 
which the American Government has seen jit to 
impose upon the course of neutral trade. This 
the German Government absolutely denies. It 
cannot specifically repudiate acts committed by 
individuals over whom it has no control, and of 
whose movements and intentions it is neither 
officially or unofficially informed."* 

To this official disavowal of German propa- 
ganda in America, there are two answers that 
stand out with dramatic force. First, the ex- 
tent to which the subjects of Germany are ex- 
pected to go in war time is shown by excerpts 
from Germany's War Book of instructions to 
officers, which says in part: 

"Bribery of the enemy's subjects with the 
object of obtaining military advantages, ac- 
ceptances of offers of treachery, reception of 
deserters, utilization of the discontented elements 
in the population, support of the pretenders and 
the like are permissible; indeed, international law 
is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the 

♦Berlin despatch in the New York Sun, Dec. 19, 1915. 
19 



crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiar- 
ism, robbery and the like) to the prejudice of the 
enemy. Considerations of chivalry, generosity 
and honor may denounce in such cases a hasty 
and unsparing exploitation of such advantages 
as indecent and dishonorable, but law, which is 
less touchy, allows it. The ugly and inherently 
immoral aspect of such methods cannot affect 
the recognition of their lawfulness. The neces- 
sary aim of war gives the belligerent the right 
and imposes upon him, according to circum- 
stances, the duty not to let slip the important, it 
may be decisive, advantages to be gained by such 
means. 33 * 

Secondly, since Germany sent out that semi- 
official proclamation from Berlin concerning 
propagandists, many steps have been taken by 
the American Government, both administrative 
and judicial, which belies Germany's contention. 
Captains von Papen and Boy-Ed, military and 
naval attaches respectively, have been dismissed 
from this country for "improper activities in 
military and naval affairs." 

There was no favoritism in the German secret 
service. Every German, high or low, was open 
to assignment, disagreeable and dishonorable, 
in getting information, and to orders to com- 
mit crimes — for Germany stops at no crime 
— that may be necessary to circumvent the 
enemy. 

Captain von Papen showed his feeling keenly 

*The War Book of the German General Staff, translated by J. H. 
Morgan, M.A. pp. 113-114. 

20 



one night at a dinner of a few men where the 
wine flowed freely. 

"My God, I would give everything in the 
world," he exclaimed," to be in the trenches where 
I could do the work of a gentleman." In his 
work, there was no public reward for work well 
performed according to the war code. That 
man's sentiments were echoed by von Rintelen, 
who, when among friends,* fairly shook with 
emotion at the thought of ihe work in which he 
was engaged. 

"How loathsome I feel," he said. "How this 
dirty work sticks to me ! When this war ends, I 
shall take a bath in carbolic acid." 

THREE EXECUTIVES IN THE UNITED STATES 

Over all the thousands of reservists, trained 
agents, and other spies were the men in charge 
of the centers of information to whom they made 
their report; and the three or four chief lieuten- 
ants in charge of the various and distinct line of 
activities into which these matters of war, finance 
and commerce automatically were divided. There 
were practically, outside of the Chief Spy, three 
important executives in this country, supervising 
respectively the commercial, military and naval 
lines of information and activity. Each one of 
these men was surrounded by a group of experts 
who had charge of a sub-division of the work. 
All had their legal advisors, their bankers, and 
every sort of an expert that their special work 

21 



required. Upon them fell the task of sifting and 
analyzing the mass of facts gathered by the spies 
and making reports to Berlin. Upon each one 
of them also fell the duty of carrying out any 
orders that might come from the General War 
Staff in Germany. 

First and foremost of the three lieutenants was 
Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, Privy Counselor to the 
German Embassy in America and Fiscal Agent 
of the German Empire. He directed the gather- 
ing of a huge mass of information of value to 
Germany concerning the financial, industrial and 
commercial activities of this country, and was 
the chief instrument through whom money 
reached the army of spies. Though he was the 
director of many activities, nothing criminal, it 
must be asserted in justice to him, has been traced 
to him. 

The military agent was Captain Franz von 
Papen, the attache of the German Embassy. 
His work was confined specifically to the pro- 
curing of information that would be of aid to 
the Imperial German army and to the military 
tasks that might be peculiarly helpful to the 
army. 

The naval expert was Captain Karl Boy-Ed, 
another attache of the German Embassy. He 
had under him experts who made a specialty of 
various lines of naval matters, fortifications, 
coast defenses and explosives. 

The headquarters of the entire system were 



and are yet in New York. Dr. Albert had his 
offices in the Hamburg- American Steamship 
Company's building, and he utilized at times a 
good part of the Hamburg- American Company's 
staff — a concern in which the Kaiser himself 
owns a large percentage of the stock. In the 
same building was the office of Paul Koenig, the 
business manager of part of Germany's spy sys- 
tem in America, though nominally the Superin- 
tendent of Police for the Hamburg- American 
line. Captain Boy-Ed had his headquarters in 
Room 801 of 11 Broadway, and Captain von 
Papen had his on the twenty-fifth floor of 60 
Wall Street. 

This narrative seeks to show as definitely as 
possible the work of these three agents of Ger- 
many in America and of others co-operating 
with them. It sets forth the enterprises that they 
plotted and the ramifications of their organiza- 
tion. It reveals how countless agents, unaware 
that they were parts of a vast system and often 
innocent of any intentional wrongdoing, acted 
their parts. It shows how that part of the ma- 
chinery engaged in legitimate propaganda was 
linked at places with the machinery executing 
illegal acts. 

While the conspiracy has been manipulated, 
the American Government has been very active. 
To the skill of the United States secret service, 
headed by Chief William J. Flynn, always alert 
and apparently unruffled in the most trying 



crises, and to A. Bruce Bielaski, head of the 
special agents of the Department of Justice, and 
William M. Offley, Superintendent of the New 
York Bureau of the special agents, has fallen 
the task of seeing that the representatives of the 
different countries followed the American maxim, 
"Play fair; play according to the rules of inter- 
national law and the laws of this country." Upon 
Police Commissioner Woods, his deputy, Guy 
Scull, of New York, and his enthusiastic and 
clever aid, Police Captain Thomas J. Tunney, 
has devolved also the hazardous and difficult task 
of combatting the schemes of those spies. Those 
men, by courageous and skilful detective work 
have unearthed and foiled some of the most 
daring bomb plots of the Germans. 

To Messrs. Flynn and Bielaski, at times, have 
come secrets of intrigue and conspiracy that 
must have made them, even as it has the Presi- 
dent, almost tremble with the import of impend- 
ing events that had to be forestalled. 



24 



CHAPTER II 

CAPTAIN FRANZ VON PAPEN, 
DIRECTOR OF GERMANY'S MILI- 
TARY ENTERPRISES ON THE 
AMERICAN FRONT 

I ALWAYS say to these idiotic Yankees 
they had better hold their tongues," 
So wrote Captain Franz von Papen, 
German military attache in America, to his wife 
in Germany — a letter which he entrusted to Cap- 
tain James F. J. Archibald, American newspaper 
correspondent and bearer of secret and confiden- 
tial messages from Teutonic representatives. 
The German word which the Captain used was 
"bloedsinnig," meaning silly, stupid, idiotic. It 
has a sneering ring, truly typical of the Prussian 
warrior's contempt for Americans. It suggests 
the disdainful feeling which the military attache 
had for the loyalty of Americans. One can imag- 
ine his sly laugh as he handed to an American 
that letter and code messages to the War Staff. 
With a similar feeling of contempt for the Brit- 
ish, when dismissed from this country and as- 
sured of safe conduct as to person, he carried on 
board the Steamer Noordam a portfolio of papers 
from friends reflecting the same disgust for 

25 



America and outlining his own unlawful and 
criminal acts in America. But in both instances 
his arrogant self-confidence brought exposure. 

This attitude of arrogance was Captain von 
Papen's chief characteristic. Joined to it was the 
brother trait, bluntness. He believed that the 
American people were not only stupid but also 
weak-sighted and that he could do anything he 
wanted without detection. So he put his heart 
and soul into military and criminal enterprises 
upon American soil. The Captain apparently 
thought that the American authorities would not 
suspect his machinations, for, unlike Captain Boy- 
Ed, he made comparatively few efforts to cover 
up the trails of his activities. That carelessness 
proved his scorn for American detective methods, 
for with all his haughtiness and bravado he had 
been trained in a school of craft. He had been 
drilled under instructors who placed a prize on 
cunning, deceit, intrigue, reckless disregard of 
the rights of others, and the destiny of Prussia 
as a conqueror. The Captain presumably be- 
lieved that craft and cunning were not necessary 
in America. 

CONTEMPT FOR DEMOCRACY 

Confident that he was eluding the watchful eye 
of the United States authorities with more skill 
than his associates, he sent a telegram one day to 
Captain Boy-Ed, warning him to be more care- 
ful. Whereupon the latter, smiling cheerfully to 



himself, wrote this letter: "Dear Papen: A 
secret agent who returned from Washington this 
evening, made the following statement: 'The 
Washington people are very much excited about 
von Papen and are having a constant watch kept 
on him. They are in possession of a whole heap 
of incriminating evidence against him. They have 
no evidence against Count B. and Captain B.- 
E. (!)'" Boy-Ed, a little too optimistically, 
added : "In this connection I would suggest with 
due diffidence that perhaps the first part of your 
telegram is worded rather too emphatically." 

Wrapped in that sense of contempt the mili- 
tary attache began immediately upon the out- 
break of war, even as he had planned before it, 
to make the United States "the hinterland' ' of 
the European battlefield. In the Embassy at 
Washington, the German consulate in New York, 
the Hamburg- American Building, an office in 
60 Wall street — which he secretly leased — and on 
board German merchantmen tied up in New 
York Harbor, he gathered about him German 
officials and German reservists, outlining plots in 
violation of American law, all designed to injure 
the Allies and help the cause of Germany. In 
those conferences, his arrogant disregard of 
America and his determination overruled the hesi- 
tating dissentors. His was the Prussian spirit 
of aggression. In those gatherings, he was both 
the dominating and the domineering factor: tall 
and broad-shouldered, with a commanding atti- 

'27 



tude, energetic in speech, and lightning-like in 
the development of bold plans. He has the strong 
forehead, the long, firm nose, and the heavy un- 
der jaw of a commander, but the large ears that 
denote recklessness and eyes blue and hard as 
steel. 

UNDER ORDERS FROM BERLIN 

He had been selected in his youth for secret 
work because of an aptness which he early dis- 
played. He had been trained especially for the 
work which he undertook in other countries under 
direction of the German General Staff and for 
the tasks that devolved upon him in America both 
before and after the war. As a young officer he 
was sent out from Germany, travelling as a civil- 
ian, making special studies of the sentiment of the 
people, the topography of the country, and get- 
ting in touch with other secret workers. One of 
the countries which he studied with remarkable 
care was Ireland. He tramped and rode every 
foot of the land and knew it thoroughly. He 
displayed something of the knowledge he had 
acquired when riding in Central Park, one day 
after the war started, he stopped to chat with an 
acquaintance who had bought a mare. Waxing 
enthusiastic over the animal he quickly showed 
his acquaintance with Ireland by giving the breed 
of the mare and telling exactly the counties in 
Ireland where that breed could be found. 

How well he disguised himself in those various 



expeditions when he rode horseback simply as a 
sightseer, is indicated by his horsemanship. 
Though he was trained in a riding school at Han- 
over, where they supposedly teach the French 
method, nevertheless in Central Park, where 
many a morning he could be observed, he dis- 
played perfect English form. They say that when 
one learns the French style, one invariably clings 
to it above all others. Naturally, a horseman 
travelling through Ireland revealing every char- 
acteristic of the French school would attract at- 
tention. 

As the military attache of the German Em- 
bassy, Captain von Papen was under orders, not 
of Count von BernstorfT, but of the military head 
in Germany. Appointed personally by the 
Kaiser as the representative of the German 
Army in America and Mexico, he had the com- 
mission that falls to every military attache of 
a foreign government, namely, to make a study 
of the army of the nation to which he is ac- 
credited. 

Captain von Papen, always striving for praise 
and preferment from the Kaiser, was a most 
enthusiastic gatherer of military information. 
Knowing that no phase of military activity 
throughout the world escapes the watchful eye 
of the Chief Spy or the German General Staff, 
von Papen was always on the alert for any in- 
vention, new method of warfare, or germ of an 
idea that might be developed into an important 



element for Germany's advantages; just as the 
War Staff got their suggestion for the modern 
trench warfare from the Indians and later from 
the Civil War. For instance, shortly before the 
great war started, Captain von Papen, addressed 
as "Royal Prussian Captain on the General Staff 
of the Army," was directed by R. von Wild, of 
the Ministry of War's office, to proceed to Mexico 
and there investigate the attacks on railroad 
trains by means of mines and explosives. He 
made a thorough investigation and though he 
reported : "I consider it out of the question that 
explosions prepared in this way would have to 
be reckoned with in a European war," he never- 
theless sought to utilize that method in blowing 
up tunnels and railroads in Canada. 

AT WORK IN MEXICO 

How well von Papen, as an organizer and mili- 
tary investigator, acquitted himself in the interest 
of the Kaiser is set forth in Rear Admiral von 
Hintze's own language in a report which he made 
from Mexico to the Imperial Chancellor recom- 
mending von Papen for a decoration. That letter 
is striking; for it suggests the work which von 
Papen did afterward in America, if he had not 
already made the arrangements for it prior to the 
outbreak of the European conflict. The admiral 
wrote that von Papen "showed special industry 
in organizing the German colony for purposes 
of self-defense and out of this shy and factious 

80 



material, unwilling to undertake any mili- 
tary activity, he obtained what there was to 
be got." 

While von Papen had a staff of experts and 
of secret agents prior to the war, he did not then 
have the perfectly developed system at his com- 
mand which he used afterward. That he had his 
plans well mapped out for any contingency and 
that he knew the situation thoroughly is vividly 
illustrated in a draft of a cable message which 
he sent to Captain Boy-Ed from Mexico City on 
July 29, 1914, saying: 

"If necessary arrange business for me too with 
Pavenstedt. Then inform Lersner. The Rus- 
sian attache ordered back to Washington by tele- 
graph. On outbreak of war have intermediaries 
located by detective where Russian and French 
intelligence office." The latter part of the mes- 
sage, referring to intermediaries, is open to two 
interpretations: first, that Boy-Ed was to have 
detectives locate the Russian and French intelli- 
gence offices ; second, Boy-Ed, was to place spies 
in the Russian and French intelligence bureaus. 

Hurrying to Washington, the military attache 
immediately took charge of the military part of 
Germany's spy system. He began to weld to- 
gether into a vast organization scientists, experts, 
secret agents and German reservists who would 
gather information for him and who would be 
ready at the command of the General War Staff, 
to undertake any military enterprise. The en- 

31 



tire organization of German consuls and repre- 
sentatives in America work in unity in war as 
in peace. How quickly von Papen got his staff 
together is shown in a statement made by Franz 
Wachendorf, alias Horst von der Goltz, alias 
Bridgeman Taylor, who became one of Papen's 
aids in spy work and military enterprises. 
Wachendorf, who was a major in the Mexican 
army at the outbreak of war, said under oath: 
"The 3d of August, 1914 ; license was given me 
by my commanding officer to separate myself 
from the service of the brigade for the term of six 
months. I left directly for El Paso, Texas, where 
I was told by Mr. Kuck, German consul at Chi- 
huahua, Mexico, who stayed there, to put myself 
at the disposition of Captain von Papen." 

CALLING RESERVISTS 

The military attache also had help from Ger- 
many and from German reservists coming from 
other countries. The War Office in Berlin sent 
him men. Captain Hans Tauscher, the husband 
of Mme. Gadski, was in Germany when war was 
declared. A reserve officer of the German Army, 
he immediately offered himself for duty. His 
order was to return to America at once and 
report to Captain von Papen. Likewise, soldiers 
and secret agents with special equipment, who 
were in different parts of the world and who had 
no definite work, were ordered by wireless or 
through secret channels to hasten to Captain von 

32 



Papen's assistance. After a time, the Chief Spy 
in Germany detailed some of his aids to America 
to help in the upbuilding of a still more effective 
system of espionage. 

Though remarkably skilled and trained to a 
high degree in a number of different lines, Cap- 
tain von Papen made it his business to gather 
around him experts on every phase of military 
affairs, giving definite assignments to each and 
thus dividing the work so that greater speed 
and efficiency were obtained. He chose Captain 
Tauscher, agent of the Krupps and other big 
and small gun manufacturers in Germany and 
Austria, as one of his aids in gathering informa- 
tion. Captain Tauscher is an expert on ordnance 
and as such he was of invaluable assistance to 
Captain von Papen in obtaining fects regard- 
ing the manufacture of heavy ordnance and 
explosives for the Allies. Tauscher was on most 
friendly terms with U. $. Ordnance officers. 

Von Papen selected George von Skal, a Ger- 
man journalist and former Commissioner of Ac- 
counts of New York, as a paid assistant in his 
office; and as a matter of fact every one of the 
big German agents in America had on his staff 
at least one trained newspaper man. He took 
as his secretary Wolf von Igel, a young man of 
distinguished appearance, and through him se- 
cretly rented a suite of offices in Wall street "for 
advertising purposes." 

Another man upon whom he could call for help 

33 



was Paul Koenig, lent by the Hamburg- Ameri- 
can Steamship Company. Through Koenig, von 
Papen could reach out to countless Germans and 
select men for any sort of task. Sometimes, how- 
ever, von Papen met with a refusal. He asked 
Captain Tauscher to perform a certain piece of 
work of questionable character and received in 
substance this answer: "I am ready to do any- 
thing within the law but I will not attempt this 
task." Experts in the chemistry of explosives; 
scientists of various sorts; lawyers and other ad- 
visers were on the military attache's staff, all hav- 
ing special tasks and all working for the Kaiser 
with or without pay. 

FOREIGN ARMY ON U. S. SOIL 

Von Papen sought to protect his Wall street 
suite of offices from public investigation by 
installing therein a safe bearing the seal of the 
Imperial German Government. That safe, pro- 
tected by timelocks and by electrical devices 
against the curiosity of other secret agents or the 
prying eyes of policemen, is said to have contained 
the plans of the military phases of German propa- 
ganda. When the Federal agents, suddenly de- 
scended upon the office one day to arrest von Igel, 
they found the safe open and the documents neatly 
laid out on the table preparatory to shipment to 
Washington. From those papers the State De- 
partment and the Attorney- General have learned 
much of the history of von Papen's activities — 

34 



the inner workings of the German spy system. 
In that office von Papen kept the full list of his 
various secret agents, German and American, 
working for him, their addresses and telephone 
numbers; various code books for the deciphering 
of messages sent to him and for sending word to 
agents in this country or making reports. 

Accordingly, when von Papen's plan for es- 
pionage was perfected, he had not only a staff 
of experts at his elbow, but thousands of re- 
servists, the help of German and Austra-Hun- 
garian consuls and channels of information. He 
had men at his disposal for dangerous and del- 
icate missions to other countries. The ramifica- 
tions of this fact — collecting agency and of activi- 
ties which he supervised for the good of the Fath- 
erland were so finely organized and so compre- 
hensive that von Papen in reality was the head 
of the military division of the German spy sys- 
tem of the entire world, outside of the countries 
belted by the Allies with a ring of steel. 

Facts to prove the details of von Papen's or- 
ganization and deeds were obtained from the von 
Igel papers, from the letters and secret documents 
taken from Captain Archibald; from documents 
and check stubs found in von Papen's possession 
when searched at Falmouth, England; from von 
der Goltz's confession; from scores of witnesses 
and from facts dug up by the Secret Service and 
the Department of Justice. The trials of various 
offenders against neutrality laws have given the 

35 



public more evidence. United States District- 
Attorney, H. Snowden Marshall, in New York, 
his assistants, Roger B. Wood, in charge of the 
criminal division; Raymond H. Sarfaty, John C. 
Knox, and Harold A. Content, all set forth be- 
fore the public many phases of the ingenious, 
underground methods of spying and violating 
the law. Upon the evidence found by those of- 
ficials and by United States District- Attorney 
Preston, of San Francisco, the following facts 
are presented: 

Once the spies were selected and assigned to 
their duties, von Papen sought first, to glean in- 
formation bearing on the great war. He was 
interested, naturally, in the amount of shrapnel 
shells and high explosives which the Allies were 
purchasing. He was eager to ascertain what 
American Army officers were learning about the 
military operations on the continent and what the 
American Government was doing to develop its 
army to cope with the new problems arising from 
the war. He was watching the officers of the 
Allies in this country. He was seeking lines of 
communication with the racial elements in 
America that were allied with the insurrection 
forces in the colonies of the Entente powers. The 
varied results of his investigations are shown by 
extracts from reports which he sent to Berlin by 
Captain Archibald. One letter told, for instance, 
that the Norwegian and Holland governments 
were in the market for war materials. Von Papen 



asked if there were any objection by Germany to 
the sale to those governments of war products 
purchased by him in America, adding : 

"I could probably dump on the Norwegian 
Government a great part of the Lehigh Coke 
Company's toluol which is lying around useless." 

In a cipher despatch to the chief of the General 
Staff in Berlin, he noted a conversation overheard 
in Philadelphia between two Englishmen. One 
British army officer, he said, was explaining a 
method for conveying military information by 
photographs. Likewise he gathered news of the 
Spanish government seeking supplies and sifted 
the facts assembled from factories, banking 
houses, diplomatic sources, and transportation of- 
fices about the Allied war orders. 

SECRET AGENTS BLOCK OUT AMERICA 

Captain von Papen's checks and his stub book 
are a veritable diary of some of his criminal — or 
if you please, military — activities in America. 
They give the names and the aliases of his secret 
agents ; and day after day are recorded therein 
the payments made by von Papen to the persons 
working for or with him. The check stubs tell 
the story of the purpose of the payment and by 
means of the endorsements on the checks one can 
gather in skeleton form the story of a part — but 
not all — of the propaganda which the military 
attache supervised. The stubs show the receipt 
of money, almost immediately after the beginning 

37 



of the war marked for "War Intelligence Office." 
The interesting thing is that money for war in- 
telligence work came from von Bernstorff and 
that funds for salary and expenses came from 
Dr. Fr. Adler, the Ambassador's secretary. To 
the fact that Captain von Papen kept such an 
accurate diary — an instance of German efficiency 
— is due in part the exposure of his varied ac- 
tivities in this country. 

To Anton Kuepf erle, another German spy cap- 
tured in England and suspected after a confession 
to have shot himself, he gave $100. To Wachen- 
dorf he gave funds that the latter might 
go both to Berlin and England in the 
service of the Kaiser. To Paul Koenig, he handed 
many accounts for secret service work, paying also 
the expenses of Koenig's agents on trips to Mon- 
treal and Quebec in hunting information about 
enlistments of soldiers in Canada and the ship- 
ments of supplies from Canadian ports. The 
stub book also shows that he sent agents to in- 
vestigate ammunition factories in different parts 
of the country and that he paid the expenses of 
von Skal in getting "photographs for the War 
Intelligence Office." He constantly was sending 
checks to consuls in various parts of the country 
to pay the expenses of reservists and agents. 

TO INVADE CANADA 

The diary, too, tells you of Captain von 
Papen's plan to invade Canada. Scarcely had he 

38 



arrived in this country from Mexico, a few days 
after the Germans had invaded Belgium than, as 
general in chief of the German reservists, he be- 
gan to mobilize his forces for a military enterprise 
in Canada. If you look at the Captain's diary 
you see these entries — "September 1, 1914, Mr. 
Bridgeman Taylor, $200;" "September 16, for 
Buffalo, Taylor, Ryan, $200;" "September 22, 
for Ryan, Buffalo, $200;" "October 14, for Frit- 
Ben and Busse, Buffalo, $40.00." 

These are the earmarks of an unsuccessful 
military enterprise; for just as soon as Cap- 
tain von Papen saw reservists gather in New 
York and assembling in other points he laid 
his plans for a concerted move on Canada. He 
discussed the details with his majors, captains and 
lieutenants assembling in New York. He met 
them in secret at night in the German Club and 
with maps and other detailed plans he set forth 
his mode of attack. 

Captain von Papen s scheme — as they talked 
it over at the German Club — was to create such 
a reign of terror among Canadians that the pro- 
vincial governments would deem it absolutely 
necessary to keep all the troops in Canada for 
defense rather than hurry them to the European 
battlefront. The plan, while it entailed explosions 
and fighting, was largely for psychological effect. 
One part of the scheme was to send an expedition 
to blow up the Welland Canal, a waterway that 
runs around Niagara Falls on the Canadian side 



and is a most important avenue of transportation 
for freight and passengers. The second part was 
to have an invasion by German reservists upon 
various parts of the Canadian border. 

Captain von Papen aimed to create a panic 
among the Canadians, to put such fear into them 
that they would say to England, "We need our 
troops for self -protection against the Germans in 
the United States" — thereby putting the United 
States in a position of being unable to preserve 
its neutrality. The destruction of the canal by a 
tremendous explosion, or the detonation of a car- 
load of dynamite on some railroad, or any sort 
of explosion in the Dominion, believed to have 
been supervised by Germans, would have had a 
tremendous effect upon the people. Doubtless 
this was what Captain von Papen sought; for 
that was the way he outlined the scheme to his 
assistants. 

One of the men whom von Papen gathered 
for secret conference in the German Club, it is 
charged, was Wachendorf. "Von der Goltz" in 
a confession made to the Federal authorities said 
that he was asked to give his opinion about a 
proposal made to the German Embassy, the 
writer of which, a certain Schumacher, had asked 
for financial support in order to carry out a 
scheme by which he would be able to make raids 
on towns situated on the coast of the Great Lakes. 
He proposed to use motor-boats armed with ma- 
chine-guns. Though the proposal was rejected 

40 



on account of the Embassy receiving unfavorable 
information about the writer, "von der Goltz," 
next was requested to aid in a scheme of invasion 
of Canada with a small armed force recruited 
from the reservists in the United States. The 
scheme, which was proposed by von Papen and 
Boy-Ed, was abandoned as objections to it were 
made by Count von BernstorfL "Von der Goltz" 
says he was told so by Captain von Papen. 

BLOWING UP CANALS 

Captain von Papen next asked "von der Goltz" 
to see at his hotel two Irishmen, prominent mem- 
bers of Irish associations, both of whom had 
fought in the Irish rebellion and who had pro- 
posed to Captain von Papen to blow up the locks 
of the canals connecting the Great Lakes, main 
railway junctions and grain elevators. "Von der 
Goltz" says he received the gentlemen at his hotel, 
the men bringing with them a letter of introduc- 
tion written by Captain von Papen. After hav- 
ing taken them to his room he got further details 
of the matter, maps and diagrams evidently cut 
out of books. 

"Von der Goltz" also tells of going to Balti- 
more to enlist a number of German reservists 
who were staying on a German vessel there. In 
that scheme, he says, he had the aid of Karl A. 
Luederitz, German consul. He brought them 
to New York but believing that his movements 
were being watched by Federal agents, he sent 

41 



them back. Continuing his story of the con- 
spiracy, von der Goltz writes : 

"I saw Mr. Tauscher and he gave me a letter 
of introduction to the Dupont Powder Company, 
recommending B. H. Taylor, and the company 
supplied me with an order to the bargeman in 
charge of the dynamite barges lying on the New 
Jersey side near the Statue of Liberty. Cap- 
tain Tauscher told me he would send the automa- 
tic pistols by messenger to Hoboken, to be de- 
livered there to one of my agents at a certain 
restaurant, as he would be liable to punishment 
if he delivered them in New York without having 
seen my permit. The reasons why I did not apply 
to the police for a permit are obvious. 

SCATTERING DYNAMITE 

"In order to get the dynamite it was necessary 
for me to hire a motor-boat at a place near 146th 
Street, Harlem, and to put the dynamite on board 
in suit-cases. After returning to the dock, where 
I had hired the boat, I went in a taxicab, having 
two suit-cases with me, to the German Club to 
see von Papen, who told me to call for the genera- 
tors and then wire again at the club. I took the 
dynamite to my rooms, where I kept also a por- 
tion of the arms packed in small portmanteaus 
ready to be moved, the rest of the dynamite and 
arms being in the keeping of two of my agents, 
one of which was Mr. Fritzen, discharged from 
a Russian steamer, where he had acted in the 



capacity of purser ; the other one being Mr. Busse, 
a commercial agent, who had lived for some time 
in England ; the only other agent I employed be- 
sides C. Covani, who attended to me personally, 
Tucker not being entrusted with any of those 
things." 

Going to Buffalo with his men and equipment, 
'Von der Goltz" was unable for some reason to 
receive definite instructions from von Papen, who 
was supposed to communicate with him under the 
name of "Steffens." He says: 

"Being thrown on my own discretion, I deter- 
mined to reconnoitre the terrain where I wanted to 
act first, but to do nothing further till I should 
receive orders. 

"On 25th September received notice from Ryan 
to come to Buffalo. Having meantime received 
private information that the 1st Canadian Con- 
tingent had left Valcartier Camp, I knew that I 
should be recalled, the object of the enterprise be- 
ing removed. I received from Ryan the telegram 
agreed upon in that case, but as I had spent most 
of the money furnished to me I asked whether 
Ryan had not received money to enable me to pay 
off the men. Ryan said he had not, but gave me 
some of his own initiative, and said he would wire 
'Steffens.' On the 26th September I received tele- 
gram from 'Steffens' telling me to do what I 
thought best, and asking whether I had received 
the $200. Thinking it best to return to New York, 
all the more as funds were insufficient, I dis- 

43 



charged Busse and Fritzen, who went to Buffalo, 
left dynamite and other materials in the keeping 
of an aviator who was manager of a restaurant at 
Niagara Falls, to be used again when necessary, 
and left with Covani for New York by way of 
Buffalo." 

The trial of Captain Tauscher on the indict- 
ment charging him with conspiring with von 
Papen, von Igel and others to blow up the Wel- 
land Canal resulted in the acquittal of the Ger- 
man reservist ; but it was admitted that von Papen 
and von der Goltz had developed a plot to destroy 
the Canal. 

The evidence presented by Prosecutor Wood 
made a case, corroborated by details of testimony 
and documents, that delighted legal experts. The 
jurors, several of whom were of foreign birth ac- 
quitted the captain apparently on the theory that, 
though he had furnished the dynamite, fuses and 
automatic revolvers to von der Goltz, he knew 
nothing about the plot, but simply had followed 
the orders given him by his superior officer, Cap- 
tain von Papen. 

OBEDIENCE IN AMERICA EXACTED 

Captain Tauscher, on the witness stand, testi- 
fied that he was in Germany at the outbreak of 
the war; that he had proffered his services as a 
reservist officer and that he had been directed to 
return to America and report to Captain von 
Papen. He said he knew von Papen as the head 

44 



of the German secret service and that he was 
compelled to obey him. He protested, however, 
that he had exacted a promise from von Papen 
to the effect that he would not be asked to do any- 
thing contrary to American laws. He said he 
was an ordnance expert under von Papen. 

Many documents, revealing the manner in 
which von Papen and his assitahts worked, had 
been taken from von IgeFs office, formerly von 
Papen's New York headquarters and were pre- 
sented as evidence by Prosecutor Wood. One 
document was a piece of paper in von Papen's 
own handwriting directing that a check in pay- 
ment of the ammunition, pistols and dynamite, 
be drawn in favor of Captain Tauscher and that 
the same be charged to the account of William 
G. Sichols. Still another document was a 
copy of a letter written to a preacher in March, 
1916, saying that Tucker, one of the witnesses in 
the Canal expedition, must be sent away for a 
time and remain quiet. The amount, $100 was 
enclosed for that purpose. Tucker was arrested 
in Texas. Although Captain Tauscher was freed, 
practically every charge of the prosecution was 
admitted except that Captain Tauscher had any 
knowledge of von Papen's criminal intentions. 

RECKLESS ADVENTURERS HIRED 

Without doubt, according to facts gathered by 
the Federal authorities and developed in Canada, 
Captain von Papen and reservist German army 

45 



officers in the country did plan a mobilization of 
German reservists to attack Canadian points. 
Hundreds of thousands of rifles and hundreds of 
thousands of rounds of ammunition that were to 
be available for German reservists were stored 
in New York, in Chicago, and different places 
along the border. While the Canadian and the 
American officials developed evidence concerning 
this plan of invasion, Max Lynar Louden, known 
to the Federal authorities as "Count Louden," 
a man of nondescript reputation, who had secret 
communications with the Germans in the early 
part of the war, has confessed that he was party 
to the scheme for quick mobilization and equip- 
ment of an army of German reservists. While 
many persons insist that Louden is a fabricator, 
nevertheless his secret activities were of such a 
character that he was under suspicion by the 
Federal authorities. At one time, he succeeded 
in getting himself invited to a Government House 
Ball, when the Duke of Connaught was the host. 
His bizarre costume attracted attention. The 
moment it was rumored that he was supposed 
to have two or three wives, a State investigation 
was commenced which resulted in the imprison- 
ment of Louden. His story therefore is inter- 
esting. 

Through German- American interests the plans 
were made in 1914, he said, and a fund of $10,- 
000,000 was subscribed to carry out the details. 
Secret meetings were held in New York, Buffalo, 

46 



Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, and other large 
cities, and at these meetings, Loudon asserted, it 
was agreed that a force of 150,000 men, German 
reservists, was available to seize and hold the 
Wetland Canal, other stragetic points and muni- 
tions centres. 

"We had it arranged," said Louden, "to send 
our men from large cities following announce- 
ments of feasts and conventions ; and I think we 
could have obtained enough to carry out our plans 
had it not been for my arrest on the charge of 
bigamy. The troops were to have been divided 
into four divisions, with sioo sections. The first 
two sections were to have assembled at Silver- 
creek, Michigan. The first was to have seized the 
Wetland Canal. The second was to have taken 
Wind Mill Point. The third was to have gone 
from Wilson, N. Y ., to Port Hope, Canada. The 
fourth was to have proceeded from Watertown, 
N. Y ., to Kingston, Canada. The fifth was to 
have assembled near Detroit and land near Wind- 
sor. The sixth section was to leave Cornwall and 
take possession of Ottawa." 

After the enterprise on the Welland Canal 
failed and Count von Bernstorff, according to 
von der Goltz, disapproved of the Canadian in- 
vasion, there was a lull in any concerted move 
upon Canada. 

By referring again to Captain von Papen's 
diary it is evident that he had other matters to 
absorb his attention. The stubs of the check book 

47 



record payments such as the following payment 
dated July 10, 1915, "H. Tauscher (Preleuther's 
bill for 'Res. Picric Acid') $68. The busy at- 
tache, fighting here in the interests of the Father- 
land had other plans. 

BUYS UP EXPLOSIVES 

Captain von Papen was keenly alive to the 
production of explosives in America for sale to 
the Allies. He was watching closely the product 
of the different ammunition factories. He was 
locating the source of the ingredients for such 
explosives and he was naturally concerned in any 
method for preventing the export of arms and 
ammunition to the Allies. He possessed an un- 
usual mind for economic data — a quality which 
aroused the admiration of Dr. Albert. The two 
men were much in conference over industrial 
matters that might be managed in the interest of 
the Teutonic Allies. Under Dr. Albert's guidance 
he took up the project of acquiring a monopoly 
in toluol, a constituent of the deadly explosive T. 
N. T., and for buying picric acid, and liquid 
chlorine. 

How he made recommendations on these 
things to Dr. Albert was shown in connec- 
tion with the fiscal agent's activities. Other secret 
letters and reports prove that he and his associates 
had control of the Lehigh Coke Company, which 
turned out a large amount of toluol and that he 
was studying to control the supply of picric acid 

48 



in this country. Still further, he devoted much 
time to the Bridgeport Projectile Company in 
Bridgeport, Connecticut. This company was or- 
ganized shortly after the outbreak of the war 
and its promoters were prevailed upon to sell out 
to German interests who, after an expose of their 
activities, disposed of their holdings to still an- 
other group. Carl Heynen, an able German or- 
ganizer and expert in Mexican affairs, had charge 
of the plant and supervised construction work 
and the placing of contracts for steel, ammuni- 
tion, and presses. The money was furnished by 
Hugo Schmidt, and Dr. Albert. 

Von Papen, Heynen, Dr. Albert, frequently in 
conference, planned, as excerpts from memoran- 
dum prepared by them prove, to use the concern 
in several ways: (1) to turn out supplies that 
could be used by Germany and her Allies, or by 
countries planning to make trouble for the United 
States; (2) to take the Allies' orders and fail to 
fill them; (3) to use the company as a means of 
getting information from the War Department. 

One of Captain von Papen's own letters re- 
veals the importance of these enterprises. Writ- 
ing to his wife about the so-called Albert papers, 
he says : 

"Unfortunately they stole a fat portfolio from 
our good friend, Dr. Albert in the elevated. The 
English secret service, of course. Unfortunately, 
there were some very important things from my 
report, among them such as buying up liquid 



chlorine and about the Bridgeport Projectile 
Company, as well as documents regarding the 
buying up of phenol and the acquisition of 
Wright's Aeroplane patent. But things like that 
must occur. I send you Albert's reply, for you 
to see how we protect ourselves. We composed 
the document to-day." 

STOPPING SHIPMENTS FROM AMERICA 

This search for information of military value 
and these plans for acquiring monopolies on cer- 
tain ingredients for high explosives, carried on 
during the winter and spring of 1914-15, were 
but preliminary to a much more extensive cam- 
paign in which, as will be shown later on, Dr. 
C. T. Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassa- 
dor, assisted by von Papen and Boy-Ed; worked 
with the idea, first, of controlling the arms and 
ammunition factories in this country, and next, 
of preventing the shipment of such products from 
America. 

Naturally, during the winter and spring, Cap- 
tain von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed, Dr. Albert, 
Count von BernstorfT, all along various lines, had 
been struggling to help the Fatherland, each 
eagerly hoping for success and some preferment 
extended by the Kaiser as a reward for tasks well 
performed. 

Attacks were planned upon the Canadian 
Pacific Railway in the east, the Welland Canal, 
the St. Clair tunnel, running under the Detroit 

50 



River from Port Huron, Michigan, to Sarnia, 
Ontario, and tunnels of the Canadian Pacific 
Railroad in the Selkirk mountains. It is charged 
also in indictments handed down by a Federal 
Grand Jury in San Francisco that the conspira- 
tors in the West planned also to blow up trains 
carrying munitions of war, horses, arms and the 
like, and also to attack trains carrying soldiers. 
By a study on the map of the points thus men- 
tioned it will be observed that these enterprises 
were planned with the utmost care to break into 
sections of the Canadian transcontinental rail- 
way system and to paralyze it absolutely. It can 
be seen at a glance that such plots, if carried out, 
would have prevented soldiers and munitions of 
war from travelling East to ship for the 
western front, or from going West to cross the 
Pacific, thence through Siberia to the eastern 
front. To this land scheme was added the addi- 
tional plots of destroying docks by incendiarism, 
ships by explosions and fire. Furthermore, agents 
on land under the direction of other men were 
studying the munition factories in the western 
part of the United States preparatory to causing 
explosions and fires. 

For the execution of these campaigns against 
munition industries and railroads in the West 
and Northwest, Captain von Papen had special 
lieutenants. The persons who have been convicted 
in San Francisco on the charge of conspiring to 
blow up railroads and to wreck the transcontin- 

51 



ental railway system in Canada are: Franz Bopp, 
German consul in San Francisco; Baron Eckhart 
H. von Schack, German vice-consul; Lieutenant 
Wilhelm von Bricken, attache of German consu- 
late; Charles C. Crowley, detective for German 
consul; and Mrs. Margaret W. Cornell, secretary 
to Crowley. They were sentenced to two years 
imprisonment each. 

The question may justly he asked: "Why is it 
charged that von Papen was behind and directed 
all these enterprises?" The Federal authorities 
have established a connection between von 
Papen's headquarters in 60 Wall street, and the 
German Consulate in San Francisco, whence, ac- 
cording to United States District-Attorney 
Preston of that city, ramifications led out to the 
different angles of the conspiracy in the West. 
So strong is the evidence that the San Francisco 
officials have accused the defendants of using the 
mails to incite murder, arson and assassination. 
It is charged that the defendants planned to de- 
stroy munition works at Aenta, Indiana, at 
Ishpeming, Michigan, and at Gary and other 
places in the West. Among the evidence is one 
letter among several which has to do with the 
question of the price which would be paid for the 
destruction of a powder plant at Pinole, Cali- 
fornia, and in it reference was made to "P." The 
letter follows: 

"Dear S. : Your last letter with clipping to-day, 
and note what you have to say. I have taken it 

59 



up with them and 'B.' (which the Federal officials 
say stands for Franz Bopp, German Consul) is 
awaiting decision of 'P.' in New York, so cannot 
advise you yet, and will do so as soon as I get 
word from you. You might size up the situation 
in the meantime." 

While this and other letters show, in the opinion 
of the Government officials, that von Papen was 
concerned with the defendants mentioned in the 
western indictment, still other facts have been 
gathered against von Papen. He has been traced 
from Washington and New York to a number of 
points in the United States, his visits coinciding 
with remarkable closeness to the time that meet- 
ings of the alleged conspirators were being held. 
Captain von Papen sauntered from the Ritz-Carl- 
ton Hotel in New York one afternoon about 3.30, 
down Madison avenue to 42d street, where he 
wavered for a moment as if deciding whether he 
would turn over for a jaunt on Fifth avenue or 
drop into the Grand Central Station to buy a 
magazine. 

After a moment he walked slowly into the 
station, glancing casually at his watch, mov- 
ing just before the gate closed toward the 
entrance to the track where stood the Twentieth 
Century Limited and he was soon safely on board. 
The next day he was observed in Chicago, where 
he announced that he was on his way to Yellow- 
stone National Park — and he disappeared. For 
several weeks he was lost to the sight of the zeal- 

53 



ous agents who were hunting him; but one day 
he was observed sauntering through the lobby of 
the Palace Hotel, San Francisco. In the course 
of his absence, he is said to have swung down 
along the Mexican border, where he caught up 
with Captain Boy-Ed, conferred with a number 
of secret agents from Mexico, with spies scattered 
throughout the country and then hurried up to 
San Francisco where he was busy before the 
agents of the Department of Justice picked him 
up again. 

CONSPIRACIES ON LAND AND SEA 

One indictment against the five defendants, 
phrased in legal terms, is vivid and forcible 
though barren of details. It accuses the German 
representatives and their hirelings of plotting to 
blow up railway tunnels, railroads, railroad trains, 
and bridges, already mentioned. Over this vast 
system of transportation, the indictment explains, 
there were being shipped supplies westward for 
transportation on the ships Talthybius and Hazel 
Dollar. The defendants, it is charged, hired Smith 
to help them gain information about the sailings 
and the cargoes of ships leaving Tacoma bound 
for Vladivostok; that after Smith went to Ta- 
coma, Crowley sent him money. Crowley and 
Smith came to New York where they had confer- 
ence with Germans who were in touch with von 
Papen. They next went to Detroit, where they 

54 



were working out plans for the blowing up of the 
tunnel when they were arrested. Smith, who was 
working on the shipping and the tunnel end of 
the scheme, confessed, while van Koolbergen also 
has made a statement to the authorities which is 
of great interest, showing the workings of the 
defendants. 

"On different occasions in his room," says van 
Koolbergen, "von Brincken showed me maps and 
information about Canada, and pointed out to 
me where he wanted the act to be done. This was 
to be between Revelstoke and Vancouver on the 
Canadian Pacific Railway, and I was to get 
$3,000 in case of a successful blowing up of a 
military train, or bridge, or tunnel. 

"There are many tunnels and bridges there, 
and military trains pass every three or four days ; 
he also knew when a cargo of dynamite would 
pass. He then explained to me how I could get 
hold of dynamite, and explained to me that on 
the other side of the river on which the Canadian 
Pacific ran (I believe it was the Fraser River) 
the Canadian Northern Railway was in course of 
construction, and they had at intervals powder 
and dynamite magazines and that it would be 
very easy to steal some of the dynamite." 

Several ships were blown up on the Pacific; 
others were disabled under circumstances that' 
suggested conspiracies. There were schemes also 
to destroy docks on the Pacific coast. In view 
of these plots, it is striking to observe in von 

65 



Papen's check stubs this entry: "May 11, 1915, 
German Consulate, Seattle (for Schulenberg) 
$500." An explosion in Seattle Harbor occurred 
on May 30, 1915. 

Another excerpt from the check stub is dated 
February 2d, 1915, recording the payment of 
$1,300 to the Seattle, Washington, German Con- 
sulate marked "C. Angelegenheit," a very vague 
word for "affair." He also paid to A. Kalschmidt, 
of Detroit who is accused by the Canadian 
authorities of plotting to blow up armories and 
factories in Canada, $1,000 on March 27, 1915, 
and $1,976 on July 10, 1915. 

While this enterprise was being mapped out in 
the West, a second project against the Welland 
Canal was in the making in New York. Paul 
Koenig, the intermediary between von Papen and 
reservists and others, had charge, it is alleged, of 
selecting assistants who would carry dynamite, 
fuses, and other equipment to the Canadian water- 
way. Koenig selected as his assistants Richard 
Emil Leyendecker, retailer of art woods, a 
naturalized German-American, Fred Metzler, 
Koenig's stenographer, George Fuchs, a Ger- 
man who after a quarrel with Koenig turned 
State's evidence; as also did Metzler, and one 
or two other men. The party went to Buffalo 
and to Niagara Falls, being trailed all the 
time by agents under direction by William M. 
Offley, chief of the Federal investigators of 
New York. 

56 



EXPLOSIONS IN FACTORIES 

While these plots in the West were developed 
in vain and some of the culprits have been con- 
victed, still other enterprises were conceived and 
set in motion in the East. A great number of 
explosions and fires have occurred in factories in 
the eastern part of the country. Though many 
of them were due to natural causes, yet suspicions 
seem to show that bombs were manufactured and 
placed in various plants and that incendiary 
bombs were hidden in other factories. The men 
believed to have committed the crime have been 
traced. They invariably proved to be Germans 
who, under assumed names had obtained work in 
the factory; and then, shortly after the fire or 
explosion, they disappeared. But Federal agents 
following them learned that they had hurried 
back to Germany or skipped away to Mexico or 
South America. Bombs for their purposes were 
manufactured in various places in New York 
and Brooklyn; and in fact the authorities have 
obtained statements from men who made the 
bombs, but thus far they have not located the 
chief man. A German officer skilled in the manu- 
facture of explosives spent a number of months 
in New York, living on board one of the Ger- 
man merchantmen and conferring frequently with 
Germans. He disappeared one day and was not 
heard of until a wireless message announced his 
arrival in Berlin. 

Into this general scheme for preventing sup- 

57 



plies from going to the Allies fits the conspiracy 
of Robert Fay and his associates. Fay, a tall, 
military-looking man who has told many stories, 
some of which are true, some of which are lies, 
fought in the trenches for Germany and then ob- 
tained leave of absence and a passport to come 
to America. He had an inventive bent, and he 
conceived the idea of manufacturing high explo- 
sive mines which could be attached to the rudder 
posts of ships, and which would be so regulated 
by a detonating device that explosions would 
occur far out at sea. Fay says that he sought 
to blow off the rudder, disable the ship, but not 
to sink the vessel or injure her passengers. 

His aim was to frighten steamship owners, and 
insurance underwriters so that the insurance on 
munition ships would be raised to an almost pro- 
hibitive rate. Experts, however, have testified 
that so great was the amount of high explosive in 
the mines that it would have blown off the stern 
of the ship, and detonated the cargo of explosives. 
In other words, had Fay's scheme worked, 
nothing of the cargo and ship would have re- 
mained but a few chips floating upon the waves. 
But through the vigilance of Chief Flynn, of the 
secret service, and Captain Tunney, of the bomb 
squad of the New York Police Department, 
Fay's plan was detected and John C. Knox, 
Assistant United States District Attorney, pre- 
sented the evidence so thoroughly that Fay and 
his brother-in-law, Walter Scholz, and Paul 
Daeche, a German reservist, were found guilty. 



They were sentenced respectively to eight, four 
and two years in the penitentiary. Fay admitted 
on the witness stand that he laid his plan before 
Captain von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed, that he 
had more than one conference with Captain von 
Papen; but he asserted that both men warned 
him not to undertake the scheme. It will be 
remembered that Fay escaped from the Atlanta 
Penitentiary within a short time after his sen- 
tence, and he is believed to be either in Mexico 
or back in the trenches. He undoubtedly secured 
aid from German sympathizers. 

FIRE BOMBS 

Another part of this vast conspiracy against 
the export of arms and ammunition was the 
scheme to manufacture the so-called fire bombs, 
which could be placed in the holds of ships and 
which, exploding after a certain time, would set 
fire to the cargoes. By this means, thirty-three 
ships were stealthily attacked, with New York 
as a basis of operation, and damage of $10,000- 
000 was done. Vessels sailing not only from 
New York but from Boston, Galveston, and even 
from the Pacific ports, carried these bombs 
stowed away in their holds. Sugar ships espe- 
cially were an object of attack, for sugar forms 
an ingredient of a certain explosive. These ships 
especially were adapted to this method, because 
once a fire started, the bomb itself would be de- 
stroyed, and as water had to be poured into the 
hold, the sugar would be destroyed. 



Several bombs would be placed in the same 
hold, as has been shown by the fact that one fire 
was started in a vessel before she had left port. 
The fire was extinguished and more sugar loaded 
on the boat. Scarcely had the boat got out of 
port when another fire started. Among the ships 
attacked by bombs were La Touraine, of the 
French line, the Minnehaha, of the Atlantic 
Transport Line, the Rochambeau, the Euterpe, 
Strathtay, Devon City, Lord Erne, Lord Or- 
monde, Tennyson and many others. 

The man accused of having charge of these 
bombs is a chemist, named Dr. Walter T. Scheele, 
formerly of Brooklyn, later of Hoboken, and 
still later a resident of some foreign country 
whither he fled. He developed — or it was sug- 
gested to him by German officers — a scheme for 
taking a small metal container divided into two 
parts. Into one part would be put sulphuric 
acid; into another part, chlorate of potash. The 
sulphuric acid eating through the partition be- 
tween the two sections made of aluminum, would 
unite with the chlorate of potash, causing com- 
bustion. Thus started, a fire so intense would be 
created that the container made of lead would be 
destroyed, and the cargo would be set on fire. 
Dr. Scheele, it is charged, made hundreds of 
these bombs, and received a large amount of 
money from German sources. One story is that 
von Rintelen paid him $10,000. Another story 
is that Wolf von Igel, von Papen's assistant, paid 
him money after von Papen left the country. 

60 



Still further, Captain Otto Wolpert, Pier Super- 
intendent of the Atlas Line, is charged with hav- 
ing received some of these bombs. The metal 
containers were manufactured on board the 
steamship Friedrich der Grosse, tied up in the 
North German Lloyd pier in Hoboken. The 
chief engineer, Carl Schmidt, who spent part 
time in collecting money for a monument to com- 
memorate the part Germans have taken in the 
present war, is said to have been directed by a 
German officer to turn over the work shop of the 
ship as a bomb factory. At any rate, Ernst 
Becker, chief electrician, who has turned State's 
evidence, and three assistant engineers have been 
arrested as co-conspirators in this ship plot. Dr. 
Scheele's assistant, Captain Charles von Kleist, 
also has been arrested. It was through informa- 
tion unwittingly supplied by him that Captain 
Tunney and Detective George Barnitz, assisted 
by extremely keen members of the bomb squad, 
unearthed the whole conspiracy. 

Captain von Papen, as an organizer of a part 
of Germany's secret service in America, as the 
schemer who sought to control a monopoly in 
certain high explosives and as a director of 
military enterprises — has been revealed by the 
Federal authorities as an extremely able servant 
of the Kaiser. These activities, however, were 
only a part of the task assigned to him by the 
German General Staff. He had still other plans 
which will be set forth in the following chapter. 

61 



CHAPTER III 

CAPTAIN VON PAPEN, 

BUYER OF PASSPORTS AND 

PROMOTER OF SEDITION 

THREE other phases of Captain von 
Papen's campaigns against the Allies 
upon American territory as a base of 
operations remain to be set forth. They are his 
supervision of a bureau for obtaining fraudulent 
passports for German reservists ordered home to 
fight for the Fatherland, the fomentation of in- 
surrections in the colonies of the Allies and of 
war between Mexico and the United States. 

PASSPORT FORGERIES 

The passport bureau is a striking instance of 
Germany's disregard of the rights and laws in 
a neutral country. With the sending of Great 
Britain's ultimatum to Germany, the cable be- 
tween Germany and the United States had been 
cut. The United States forbade the use of 
wireless for the transmission of messages in code 
to Germany, or the use of the cable for cipher 
dispatches to the warring countries. The Allies' 
war vessels began at once to search all passenger 
ships for German citizens, taking them off and 



sending them to concentration camps. Mean- 
time, von Papen, Boy-Ed and the other German 
officials realized the utmost necessity of transmit- 
ting to their respective home offices information 
concerning the developments in America. They 
knew also the vital necessity of sending back to 
Berlin, army and naval officers who had been 
selected and trained for special commissions in 
the event of war. 

But they had been taught in their early days 
the value of fraudulent passports, and to these 
they turned at once. The Germans had at 
first no regular passport bureau for the aid 
of German reservists. Every German, left to his 
own resources, did the best he could under the 
circumstances. Carl A. Luederitz, German con- 
sul in Baltimore, has been indicted on a charge 
of conspiracy in connection with obtaining a 
fraudulent passport for Horst von der Goltz 
under the name of Bridgeman Taylor. The 
young German has confessed that with the aid 
of Herr Luederitz he applied for a passport, 
and on August 31, 1914, obtained one bearing 
the signature of William J. Bryan, then Secre- 
tary of State. To get that document von der 
Goltz took an oath that he was born in San 
Francisco. 

But this method was rather loose, and upon 
Captain von Papen devolved the necessity of 
establishing a regular system. The military 
attache, always resourceful and daring, selected 



for the work Lieutenant Hans von Wedell. Von 
Wedell had been a newspaper reporter in New 
York, later a lawyer ; but when he received orders 
from Captain von Papen, he gladly undertook 
the work in New York, bureaus being started in 
other cities. He opened an office in Bridge 
Street, New York, and began to send out 
emissaries to Germans in Hoboken, directing 
them to apply for passports. He sent others to 
the haunts of hoboes on the Bowery, to the cheap 
hotels, and other gathering places of the downs- 
and-outs, offering ten, fifteen and twenty dollars 
to men who would apply for passports. He spent 
much time at the Deutscher Verein, at the Elks 
clubhouse, where he would meet his agents, give 
them instructions and receive passports. His 
bills were paid by Captain von Papen, as revealed 
by the attache's checks and check stubs. These 
show that on November 24, 1914, von Papen paid 
him $500 ; that on December 5, he gave him $500 
and then $300, the latter being for journey 
money; that he paid von WedelFs bills at the 
Deutscher Verein, amounting in November, 
1914, to $38.05. Meantime, he was using Mrs. 
von Wedell as a courier, sending her with mes- 
sages to Germany. On December 22, 1914, he 
paid Mrs. von Wedell, by his own account, $800. 

BUYING PASSPORTS WHOLESALE 

The passports which von Wedell, and later on 
his successor Carl Ruroede, Sr., obtained, were 

64 



used for the benefit of German officers whom the 
General Staff had ordered back to Berlin. Amer- 
ican passports, then Mexican, Swiss, Norwegian 
and the passports of South American countries, 
were seized eagerly by various reservists bound 
for the front. Stories were told in New York of 
Germans and Austrians, who had been captured 
by the Russians, sent to Siberia as prisoners of 
war, escaping therefrom, and making their way 
by caravan through China, embarking on vessels 
bound for America, arriving in New York and 
thence shipping for neutral countries. Among 
them was an Austrian officer, an expert observer 
in aeroplane reconnaissance, who lost both his feet 
in Siberia, but who escaped to this country. He 
was ordered home because of his extreme value 
in reconnoitering. The British learned of him, 
however, and took him off a ship at Falmouth 
to spend the remainder of the war in a prison 
camp. 

Captain von Papen used the passport bureau 
to obtain passports for spies whom he wished to 
send to England, France, Italy and Russia. 
Among these men were Kuepferle and von Bree- 
chow, both of whom were captured in England, 
having in their possession fraudulent passports. 
Kuepferle and von Breechow both confessed. 

But so reckless was von Wedell's and 
Ruroede's work that the authorities soon dis- 
covered the practice. Two hangers-on at the 
Mills Hotel called upon the writer one day and 

65 



told him of von Wedell's practices, related how 
they had blackmailed him out of $50, gave his 
private telephone numbers and set forth his 
haunts. As a result of this and other informa- 
tion reaching the Department of Justice, Albert 
G. Adams, a clever agent, started out one day, 
got into the confidence of Ruroede and offered 
to get passports for him for $50 each. Mean- 
time, von Wedell had gone on a trip to Cuba, 
apparently on passport matters, and Adams, 
posing as a pro-German got into the inner ring 
of the passport-buyers. He was informed by 
Ruroede as to what was wanted. 

CHANGING OFFICIAL STAMPS 

Though in the early days of the war it had not 
been necessary for the applicant to give to the 
Federal authorities anything more than a general 
description of himself, the reports of German 
spies in the Allies' countries became so insistent 
that the Government directed that the document, 
bearing the United States seal, must have the pic- 
ure of the person to whom it was issued. The 
Germans, however, were not worried. It was a 
simple matter to give a general description of a 
man's eyes, color of hair, age and so forth, that 
would fit the man who was actually to use the 
document and then forward the picture of the 
applicant, who, getting the passport, would sell 
it. Even though the official stamp was placed 
on the picture, the Germans were not dismayed. 



Federal Agent Adams rushed into Ruroede 's 
office one day waving five passports which had 
been issued to him in a batch by Uncle Sam. 
Adams seemed proud of his work. Ruroede was 
delighted. 

"I knew I could get these passports easily," 
boasted Ruroede. "Why, if Lieutenant Hans 
von Wedell had kept on here, he never could have 
done this. He always was getting into a muddle." 

"But how can you use these passports with 
these pictures on them?" asked the agent, 
curiously. 

"Oh, that's easy," answered Ruroede. "Come 
into the back room and I'll show you." The 
agent followed the German, who immediately 
soaked one of the passports with a damp cloth 
and with adhesive paste fastened a photograph 
of another man over the original upon which 
the imprint of the United States seal had 
been made. 

"We wet the photograph," said Ruroede, "and 
then we affix the picture of the man who is to 
use it. The new photograph also is dampened, 
but when it is fastened to the passport, there still 
remains a sort of vacuum in spots between the 
new picture and the old, because of ridges made 
by the seal. Well, turn the passport upside down, 
place it on a soft ground made with a silk hand- 
kerchief, and then, taking a paper cutter with a 
dull point, just trace the letters on the seal. The 
result is that the new photograph looks exactly 

67 



as if it had been stamped by Uncle Sam. You 
can't tell the difference." 

Through the work of Adams, four Germans, 
one of them an officer of the German re- 
serves, were arrested on the Norwegian- America 
liner Bergensfjord, outward bound to Bergen, 
Norway. They had passports issued to them 
through Ruroede's bureau under the American 
names of Howard Paul Wright, Herbert S. Wil- 
son, Peter Hansen and Stanley F. Martin. Their 
real names were Arthur Sachse, Pelham Heights, 
N. Y., who was returning to Germany to become 
a lieutenant in the German Army ; Walter Miller, 
August R. Meyer, and Herman Wegener, who 
had come to New York from Chile, on their way 
to the Fatherland Ruroede pleaded guilty and 
was sentenced to three years in Atlanta, Ga., 
prison. The four Germans, pleading guilty, 
protested they had taken the passports out of 
patriotism and were fined $200 each. 

Von Wedell, himself, was a passenger on the 
steamer Bergensfjord, but when he was lined up 
with the other passengers, the Federal agents, 
who did not have a description of him, were de- 
ceived, and let the vessel proceed. He was taken 
off the ship by the British and placed in prison. 

The arrest of Ruroede exposed the New York 
bureau, and made it necessary for the Germans 
to shift their base of operations ; but it did not put 
an end to the fraudulent passport conspiracies, 
as will be shown. In the face of the exposures, 



so daring were the German agents that they con- 
tinued to commit fraud upon the United States, 
and to put in danger every honest American 
traveling in Europe with an American passport. 

FOMENTING REVOLTS 

Captain von Papen was a superviser and a 
promoter of sedition. His headquarters in Wall 
Street were the center of lines running out to 
British and French colonies, where Germany 
planned at critical moments to start revolutions, 
if it would help her interests. 

One of the enterprises which Captain von 
Papen, acting under orders from Berlin, super- 
vised in the United States, was a revolt against 
British rule in India. Preparations for this 
insurrection had been in the making for years, 
and, in the course of all of them, German agents 
were working with the Hindus and also with 
the German-Irish in America, the latter organiza- 
tion being really headquarters for many Hindus 
traveling from Germany to England, then to 
United States, on their way back to India. There 
has been for years a sort of understanding be- 
tween pro-German Irish and certain members of 
an American society interested in India. In this 
organization, prior to the war, were men who 
were plotting a revolution in India, who were in 
touch with German agents and who received 
German money. 

Immediately after the outbreak of the war, 

69 



von Papen and his agents poured more money 
into Hindu pockets, and made arrangements to 
supply arms and ammunition to Hindus. For 
the promotion of this German-Hindu conspiracy, 
two other centers were established. One was 
fathered by Germans in San Francisco, and an- 
other was at Shanghai, China. Confessions by 
men, who were active in the enterprise, tell how 
Hindus in sympathy with the sedition plots con- 
ferred with certain German officials in Berlin, 
that they came to New York — this in the course 
of the war — where they met certain pro-German- 
Irishmen and were aided financially. From New 
York they journeyed to Chicago, where more 
money was handed to them, and then to San 
Francisco, where they had talks with Hindu 
revolutionists — whose openly avowed aim is in 
rousing the people of India to celebrate the year 
1917, "the diamond jubilee of the mutiny of 
1857," by a general and universal rising against 
British rule in India. 

HINDUS LAUNCH BOMB CAMPAIGN 

Many Hindus, who were assembled in the 
West, also had an opportunity to study the fine 
art of explosive and bomb making at a bomb 
factory up in the state of Washington. On sev- 
eral occasions groups of Hindus equipped with 
money and carrying secretly arms with them 
sailed from San Francisco for the Philippines, 
planning thence to go to India. Furthermore, 

70 



ships were chartered by German agencies to carry 
arms and ammunition to India and Ceylon. The 
American schooner Annie Larsen and the ship 
Maverick, both owned by a man named Fred 
Jebsen, a German naval officer, were chartered 
on the Pacific coast to sail for India in June, 
1915. The Annie Larsen was seized by the 
United States officials at Hoquiam, Washington, 
and on board was found a cargo of rifles and 
ammunition. The Maverick, however, got away 
also equipped with rifles and cartridges, carrying 
a number of Hindus. The good ship had a most 
eventful voyage, the sailors and the passengers 
suffering many hardships, and finally reached 
Batavia where she was seized by the Dutch 
authorities. 

In the early stages of his plans, Captain von 
Papen had an opportunity to send a rather de- 
tailed report of events in India to the secret office 
in Berlin. The chance came through Captain 
Archibald, who was about to sail from this coun- 
try, and Captain von Papen, accordingly, prepar- 
ed in code a long message. This document, which 
has been translated, is illuminating. Here it is : 

"Since October, 1914, there have been various 
local mutinies of Mohammedan native troops, 
one practically succeeding the other. From the 
last reports, it appears that the Hindu troops are 
going to join the mutineers. 

"The Afghan army is ready to attack India. 
The army holds the position on one side of the 

71 



Utak River. The British army is reported to 
hold the other side of the said river. The three 
bridges connecting both sides have been blown 
up by the British. 

"In the garrison located on the Kathiawar 
Peninsula, Indian mutineers stormed the arsenal. 
Railroad and wireless station have been destroyed. 
The Sikh troops have been removed from Belu- 
chistan ; only English, Mohammedans and Hindu 
troops remain there. 

"The Twenty-third Cavalry Regiment at La- 
hore revolted ; the police station and Town House 
were stormed. The Indian troops in Somaliland 
in Labakoran are trying to effect a junction with 
the Senussi. All Burmah is ready to revolt. 

"In Calcutta, unrest is reported with street 
fighting; in Lahore, a bank was robbed; every 
week at least two Englishmen are killed; in the 
northwestern district many Englishmen killed, 
munitions and other material taken, railroads 
destroyed ; a relief train was repulsed. 

"Everywhere great unrest, in Benares a bank 
has been stormed. 

"Revolts in Chitral very serious; barracks and 
Government buildings destroyed. The Hurti 
Mardin Brigade, under General Sir E. Wood, 
has been ordered there. Deputy Commissioner 
of Lahore wounded by a bomb in the Anakali 
Bazaar. 

"Mohammedan squadron of the cavalry regi- 
ment in Nowschera deserted over Chang, south- 
west Beshawar. Soldiers threw bombs against 
the family of the Maharajah of Mysore. One 
child and two servants killed, his wife mortally 
wounded. 

"In Ceylon a state of war has been declared." 

73 



THE REVOLT IN IRELAND 

The extensive conspiracy on the part of Ger- 
many to start a revolt in Ireland has been 
thoroughly set forth in the public prints in con- 
nection with the arrest and trial of Sir Roger 
Casement as a rebel. Sir Roger worked openly 
among the Irish prisoners in Germany, traveling 
back and forward between Ireland and Germany 
by means of a German submarine. Nevertheless, 
a very large and important American phase of 
this whole revolution occupied von Papen's atten- 
tion prior to his recall. German agents here were 
in touch with the Irishmen in America, who were 
actively co-operating with Patrick H. Pearse. 

German funds were poured into Irish hands in 
America, the money being used for the purchase 
of arms and the printing of seditious papers and 
leaflets. More than $100,000 was collected in 
America for Ireland between September, 1914, 
and April, 1915. Plans also were worked out 
with the aid of Germans in America to ship arms 
and supplies to the Irish rebels. 

There also have been vague reports of dramatic 
schemes in America to arm the Arabs in northern 
Africa and start an uprising against British rule. 
There have been signs of dramatic plottings to 
stir up trouble in Afghanistan and in Egypt. It 
is a fact that various attempts have been made 
to ship rifles and cartridges from the United 
States to South America and then from South 
America to Africa. Some of these have proved 

73 



successful. In other cases, the shipments have 
been stopped. 

FORCING WAR IN THE UNITED STATES 

Throughout all the crises arising between the 
United States and Germany over the submarine 
campaign,, German agents constantly kept in 
view the possibility of a war between their coun- 
try and this nation. They prepared for it. 

"Before I left New York," confesses von der 
Goltz, "I had some conversation with Captain 
von Papen about the war, and while speaking 
of the end of the war Captain von Papen said: 
'Should things start to look bad for us, there will 
be something happen over here/ In connection 
with other statements of his, he speculated on 
America joining Germany or on a possible up- 
rising." The significance of that remark was 
shown two years and a half later when on January 
31, 1917, three days before the break between the 
United States and Germany an order went forth 
from the German Embassy in Washington. Im- 
mediately the machinery of every German mer- 
chantman interned in American ports was 
wrecked. The damage was $30,000,000. 

Here again Captain von Papen's and Captain 
Boy-Ed's advice and orders were involved. It 
devolved upon Captain von Papen not only to 
keep in thorough touch with the development of 
American military affairs, but also to study con- 
stantly the topography of the United States, the 

7i 



•plan of cities and their surroundings from a mil- 
itary viewpoint. Upon him fell the task of sta- 
tioning German reservists in the various cities 
and towns where, in case of hostilities, they would 
be valuable to the German cause. German effi- 
ciency and foresight came to the front in connec- 
tion with these plans. There was under considera- 
tion at one time when the crises between the 
United States and Germany were acute, military 
plans to start a reign of terror in America. 

First of all, Captain von Papen and Captain 
Boy-Ed supervised the purchase of ground near 
New York and Boston, which was to be used for 
the construction of concrete bases for big guns 
in the same manner in which the Germans pre- 
pared in Belgium, England and France prior to 
the war. There is absolute proof that German 
representatives spent money for this purpose, 
and that they caused to be built foundations that 
could be used for big guns for the purpose of 
making an attack upon New York City, for in- 
stance. But that was only a part of the scheme. 

When von Papen and his colleague Boy-Ed 
were recalled, it was announced by the State De- 
partment that the reason was "improper activities 
in military and naval affairs. " A brief summary 
of Captain von Papen's activities shows that he 
violated the courtesies extended to him as a diplo- 
matic agent in secretly sending code messages by 
couriers; that he handed out money for fraud- 
ulent passports; that he schemed in military en- 

75 



terprises against Canada; that he plotted with 
Ambassador Dumba to start strikes in American 
factories; that he plotted in connection with 
other criminal activities in this country, such 
as blowing up factories; that he was a promoter 
of seditious enterprises; and that he and his as- 
sociates schemed to start war between the United 
States and Mexico. 

When he set foot upon the gangplank of the 
steamship Noordam, homeward bound, he said: 
"I leave my post without any feeling of bitter- 
ness, because I know full well that when history 
is once written it will establish our clean record, 
despite all the misrepresentations spread broad- 
cast." But at the moment he handed out that 
statement he was carrying under his arm a port- 
folio which was a veritable diary of his payments 
to law-breakers. Again he gave proof of his ex- 
pression about "stupid Americans," because he 
thought he could make those "stupid Americans" 
believe him, and that he could sneak the proofs of 
his law-breaking past the British at Falmouth. 
Again the stupidity was on his side. 



76 



CHAPTER IV 

VON IGEL AND KOENIG, 

TWO OF THE KAISER'S FAITHFUL 

WORKERS 

WOLF VON IGEL, von Papen's man 
Friday and custodian of his secret 
documents, was hustling about his 
private office on the twenty-fifth floor of 60 Wall 
street on the morning of April 19, 1916. He was 
hurried. His full, grey eyes glistened with ex- 
citement and he curled his stubby moustache as 
he glanced upon heaps of papers carefully ar- 
ranged on the long council table and on the floor. 
Then squaring his stocky shoulders, he turned 
again to the big safe, bearing the seal of the Im- 
perial German Government, and swinging back 
the heavy doors, extracted another bundle of pa- 
pers which he ranged among the other sheets with 
military precision. 

"It's 11 o'clock and Koenig should be here 
now," he said in German to another employe of 
von Papen's who was with him. "These papers 
must be packed up at once." 

He paused and then began a mental inventory 
of each stack of papers to make sure none was 
missing. All these documents — there were hun- 

77 



dreds of them and their weight, as revealed by a 
government agent, was seventy pounds — had be- 
longed to von Papen. They revealed the inner 
workings of the German spy system in America 
and a great part of the world. They told many 
of the details. Those papers, connecting the 
German Government with violators of law in 
America, were a vast responsibility for any officer 
of von Igel's age. Naturally, the young man 
was keyed to a high pitch of excitement; for 
hitherto they had come from the safe only piece- 
meal, and to permit daylight to reach so many 
at one time was almost a little more than von 
Igel's nerve could stand. 

Perhaps he had a presentiment. In fact, secret 
agencies had been at work to instill in him a feel- 
ing of uneasiness. Von Igel, stopping again and 
again to twirl his moustache, knew that von 
Papen and Captain Tauscher had been indicted 
on a charge of plotting to blow up Welland 
Canal. Word also had come to him that still 
more ominous events were portending and the 
idea — by stealthy prearrangement — had been 
given to him to ship all the documents to Wash- 
ington, where they would be absolutely safe. 
Therefore von Igel was both busy with his pack- 
ing and intensely perturbed. 

"A man to see you, Herr von Igel," announced 
a stout German attendant. "He refuses to tell 
his business except that it is important." 

Von Igel was gruffly directing his agent to 

78 



make the stranger specify his name and mission 
when the door was flung open. In dashed Joseph 
A. Baker, of the Department of Justice, in charge 
of Federal Agents Storck, Underhill, and 
Grgurevich. 

"I have a warrant for your arrest!" shouted 
Baker, who had a warrant charging the German 
with complicity in the Welland Canal enterprise. 
Von Igel eyed the intruders for the fraction of a 
second. With one spring he reached the safe, 
and swinging the doors shut, was turning the 
combination when Baker leaped upon him bear- 
ing him to the floor. Then followed a battle 
of four Americans against two Germans, the 
attendant having been quieted by the flash of 
revolvers. 

"This means war," yelled von Igel. "This is 
a part of the German Embassy and is German 
territory. You've no right here." 

"You're under arrest," said Baker soothingly, 
as he pulled a revolver. 

"You shoot and there'll be war," answered von 
Igel, while Storck and Underhill grappled with 
a third. "I'm connected with the Embassy and 
you can't arrest me." The first skirmish was 
quickly ended by von Igel, realizing the import- 
ance of the documents entrusted to his care and 
straining every resource to outwit his captors, he 
fought again and again, facing revolvers and 
braving fists to reach the telephone to call for the 
help of the German Ambassador and prevent the 

79 



officers from gathering up the documents. But 
he was unsuccessful. As the agents led him from 
the office, they met Koenig, von Igel's associate, 
and von Papen's agent in many enterprises just 
entering. Koenig, who was already facing three 
charges growing out of his activities, was rendered 
speechless by the sight of von Igel in custody and 
some of his documents in possession of the gov- 
ernment. 

The mass of documents — it makes no difference 
whether the Secretary of State, for reasons of State 
or of law, orders their return — not only set forth 
the secrets of Germany's activities in this country ; 
but they also told what part von Igel and Koenig 
played in the invisible war in America. They 
show how both men were errand boys, carriers 
of cash and of messages for von Papen and 
Boy-Ed. 

WHO WAS VON IGEL? 

Concerning young von Igel there is much 
mystery. At the outbreak of the war, he was 
reported to be wandering around looking for a 
job, willing to work for any wages. Then von 
Papen picked him up, paying him a salary of 
$238 a month. There is a rumor, too, that he is 
a grandson of Graf von Waldersee, one time Ger- 
many's Chief of Staff. That he is a man of im- 
portance is indicated by the manner in which he 
was trusted by von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Dr. 
Albert. When in an automobile ride from Cap- 

80 



tain Tauscher's home on Long Island with von 
Papen and Dr. Albert, he met with an injury, 
he was hurried secretly to a hospital. Every ef- 
fort was made to hide his identity ; but Dr. Albert 
and von Papen visited him frequently. Von 
Papen paid the hospital bills and charged them 
up to "War Intelligence." 

Almost immediately upon beginning service 
under von Papen, he leased the offices in Wall 
street, putting down in the contract "advertising" 
as the purpose to which the rooms were to be 
devoted and never making any statement as to 
his connection with the German Embassy. He 
quickly gave von Papen every reason to trust 
him fully and won the respect of the reckless 
attache. Though he did not begin work for von 
Papen until September, 1914, he had, it is 
charged, a hand in the first Welland Canal enter- 
prise. 

HANDLING MONEY FOR EVIL ENDS 

Von Igel also handled money for von Papen. 
For instance, on March 27, 1915, the latter gave 
to his secretary a check payable to his order for 
$1,000 and on the counterfoil of his check book he 
wrote "for A. Kaltschmidt, Detroit," who since 
has been accused by the Canadian authorities as 
an accomplice in the project against Canadian 
armories and munition factories. It was von Igel, 
furthermore, who cashed many checks for von 
Papen, the proceeds of which were to go to secret 

8% 



agents starting on missions to the enemy's coun- 
try. He carried confidential messages which von 
Papen would not put in writing. He handled 
the code books in compiling and deciphering mes- 
sages. He carried orders to Koenig, conferring 
with him and directing him when to meet von 
Papen. 

When von Papen was preparing to leave the 
country at the request of President Wilson, he 
began to turn over his documents to von Igel for 
safe keeping. He gave him instructions as to the 
custody of the papers and the cleaning up of work 
left undone. In his regard, he undoubtedly 
followed Dr. Albert's instructions put in a letter 
from San Francisco: "If you should leave New 
York before my return, we must try to come 
to some agreement about pending questions 
by writing. Please instruct Mr. Amanuensis 
Igel as precisely as possible. You will then 
receive in Germany the long-intended report of 
the expenses paid through my account on your 
behalf." 

So von Igel, as a trusted clerk, took unto him- 
self the duties of confidential man for von Papen 
and for other big Germans who began but were 
obliged to leave unfinished certain projects in 
this country. There were many lines of informa- 
tion and activities converging to von Papen, af- 
terward to von Igel. After von Rintelen left this 
country part of his schemes were entrusted to 
von Igel, who saw men with whom von Rintelen 

82 



or his assistants had dealt. For instance, he has 
been indicted jointly with Dr. Scheele, Captain 
Gustave Steinberg, von Kintelen's aid, for com- 
plicity in a plan to ship articles abroad under 
fraudulent manifests and thus deceive the Allies. 
One of these schemes was to export lubricating 
oil much needed in Germany, to Sweden as 
fertilizer. Some of the payments for this pur- 
pose were made after von Rintelen sailed for 
home. 

With von Papen gone and Koenig arrested, 
von Igel became a somewhat important person, 
taking upon himself the attache's prestige and a 
lot of Koenig's work after the latter's arrest. 
Many, many checks were cashed by von Igel in 
the four months intervening between the attache's 
departure and the former's arrest. He carried on 
von Papen's work in a miniature way, conferring 
with many secret agents, giving orders and pre- 
paring reports in code for despatching to Ger- 
many. 

While von Igel, in point of family, education 
and confidential association with the big German 
agents in America, is an important link in the 
Teutonic spy chain, Paul Koenig, ("P. K.",) is 
more striking because of his rough activities, his 
underground connections and his associations with 
law-breakers. He was a sort of business manager 
of Germany's secret service in the eastern part 
of America. 

83 



"P. X." 



"P. K.," as his hirelings called him, was a sort 
of boss, an unmerciful autocrat in the lower world, 
physically fearless, trusting no man and driving 
every man to work by the use of violent abusive 
language, boastful of his skill, physical prowess 
and his craft. In appearance, he gives this im- 
pression. A tall, broad-shouldered man, he has 
bony fingers and arms long and powerful reach- 
ing almost to his knees. His dark, sharp eyes dart 
suspiciously at you from beneath black, arching 
eyebrows, showing defiance and yet a certain 
caution. A truly typical person he is for the 
work for which he was selected and though per- 
haps a little too boastful, such supreme confidence 
undoubtedly is a necessary attribute of any man 
who would acquire any degree of success in such 
undertakings. 

Koenig is another product of the Hamburg- 
American Steamship Line — the Kaiser's very 
own. Prior to the war he was superintendent of 
the company's police, having a half -score men 
under him and keeping tab on the pier workers 
or investigating complaints received by the man- 
agement. He had grown to that task from similar 
training in the Atlas Service, a subsidiary cor- 
poration. He had spent years among 'longshore- 
men, bossing them and cursing them. He knew 
wharf rats, water-front crooks, and was thor- 
oughly acquainted with their schemes — as 

84 



naturally such a man would be. He under- 
stood thoroughly how to handle men of the rough 
type. 

When the war started and von Papen was 
searching for an assistant organizer, he found in 
Koenig's little police force a splendid nucleus of 
just what he needed. At his request the Ham- 
burg-American Line quickly put Koenig at von 
Papen's disposal and straightway von Papen be- 
gan to link up to Koenig's police a number of 
channels of information, to supply him with re- 
servists for special assignments, to suggest to him 
how to spread out and instal spies in various places 
to gather important facts. Koenig accordingly 
became the business manager of a part of Ger- 
many's secret service, not only gathering informa- 
tion but acting as a link in the labyrinth system 
employed by von Papen in communicating with 
the reservist or agent selected to do certain work 
in behalf of the Fatherland. 

How varied and steady was his work for von 
Papen is revealed by the latter's checks. Here 
are a few excerpts : "March 29, 1915, Paul Koenig 
(Secret Service bill) $509.11; * * * April 18, 
Paul Koenig (Secret Service bill) $90.94; * * * 
May 11, Paul Koenig (Secret Service) $66.71; 
* * * July 16, Paul Koenig (compensation for 
F. J. Busse) $150; * * * August 4, Paul 
Koenig (5 bills Secret Service) $118.92," and 
so on. Remember also that von Papen only 
paid from his check account for a part of 

85 



Koenig's expenses, other German officials who 
employed him receiving a bill for the special 
work. 

KEEPING TAB ON SPIES 

"P. K." also kept a most carefully prepared 
note book of his spies and of persons in New 
York, Boston and other cities who were useful 
in furnishing him information. In another book 
he kept a complete record of the assignments on 
which he sent his men, the purpose and the cost. 
In this book of names were several hundred per- 
sons — German reservists, German- Americans 
and Americans clerks, scientists and city and Fed- 
eral employes — showing that his district was very 
large and that his range for picking facts and for 
supervising other pro-German propaganda was 
broad. For his own hirelings or reservists, over 
whom he domineered, he had specially worked out 
a system of numbers and initials to be used in 
communicating with them. These numbers were 
changed at regular intervals and a system of pro- 
gression was devised by which the agent would 
know when his number changed. He also em- 
ployed suitable aliases for his workers. These men 
likewise had codes for writing letters and for 
telephone communication and they knew that on 
fixed days these codes changed. 

Always alert for a listening ear or a watchful 
eye — because playing the eavesdropper was his 
job — he looked for spies on himself. He be- 

86 



lieved that his telephone wire was tapped and 
that he was overheard when he spoke over the 
telephone. Accordingly, he instructed his men 
in various code words. For instance, if he told 
an agent to meet him at 5 o'clock at South Ferry 
that meant: "Meet me at 7 o'clock at Forty- 
second street and Broadway." 

His wire was not tapped but P. K. kept the 
men who were spying on him exceeding busy and 
worried. He would receive a call on the telephone 
and would direct the man at the other end of the 
wire to meet him in fifteen minutes at Pabst's, 
Harlem. Now from Koenig's office in the Ham- 
burg-American Building to 125th street, it is 
practically impossible to make the journey in a 
quarter of an hour ; but his watchers learned that 
Pabst's Harlem, meant Borough Hall, Brooklyn. 
Just as he eluded espionage for days and months, 
this man, skilled in shadowing others and in doing 
the vanishing act whenever necessary, boasted that 
the Federal authorities or the police never would 
get him. "They did get Dr. Albert's portfolio," 
he said one day, "but they never will get mine 
for I won't carry one." 

SHADOWS FOLLOWING SHADOWS 

He sought likewise to elude Americans trailing 
him. He never went out in the daytime that 
he did not have one or two of his agents trailing 
him to see whether he was being shadowed. He 
used to turn a corner suddenly and stand still 

87 



so that a detective following came unexpectedly 
face to face with him and betrayed his identity. 
Koenig would laugh heartily and pass on. He 
loved to jibe the American authorities and oft- 
times he would dodge around a corner and then 
reappear to confront the detective with a merry 
jest and pass on. By that means he came to 
know many agents of the Department of Justice 
and many New York detectives. When he started 
out at night he used to have three of his own 
men follow him and by a prearranged system of 
signals inform him if any strangers were follow- 
ing him. 

The task, consequently, of keeping watch of 
Koenig' s movements was most difficult and re- 
quired clever guessing and keen-headed work on 
the part of the New York police. So elusive did 
Koenig become that it was necessary for Captain 
Tunney to evolve a new system for shadowing 
Koenig and yet not betray to him the fact that 
he was under surveillance. One detective, ac- 
cordingly, would be stationed several blocks away 
and would start out ahead of Koenig. The "front 
shadow" was kept informed by a series of signals 
whenever Koenig turned a corner so that the man 
in front might dart down the street beyond and 
by a series of manoeuvres again get ahead of him. 
If Koenig boarded a street car, the man ahead 
would hail the car several blocks beyond, thus 
avoiding any suspicion from Koenig. In other 
instances, detectives, guessing that he was about 



to take a car would board it several blocks before 
it got abreast of Koenig. Because of his alert- 
ness, he kept Detectives Barnitz, Coy, Terra and 
Corell always on the edge; but they finally ran 
him down. 

It was never possible to overhear any conversa- 
tion between Koenig and any man to whom he 
was giving instructions. Koenig always made it 
a point to meet his agents — some of his workers 
he never permitted to meet him at all — in the 
open, in parks in broad daylight, in the Penn- 
sylvania Station, or the Grand Central Station. 
There, as he talked to them, he could make sure 
that nobody was eavesdropping. In the open he 
met many a man for the first time, talked with 
him and then said : 

"Be at Third avenue and Fifty-ninth street at 
2:30 to-morrow afternoon beside a public tele- 
phone booth there. When the telephone rings, 
you answer it." 

The man would obey the request. Promptly at 
the minute named, the telephone rang and the 
man answered the telephone. A strange voice 
spoke to him and told him to do certain things, 
perhaps to be at a similar place on the following 
day and receive a message, or he would receive in- 
structions as to what he should do and where he 
should go to meet another man, who would give 
him money and instructions as to what he should 
do. The voice at the other end of the wire was 
speaking from a public telephone booth and was 



thus reasonably sure also that the wire was not 
tapped. 

Koenig trusted no man. He never sent an 
agent out on a job without detailing another man 
to follow that man and report back to him the 
movements of the agent and the person whom that 
man met. He was severe with his men when they 
made their reports to him, and always insisted that 
they do exactly what he told them and never per- 
mitted them to use their own initiative. So stub- 
born was he in sticking to his own ideas that some 
of his men used to call him "the Westphalian, 
bull-headed Dutchman." 

As to the outline of Koenig's activities, his book 
of spies, the great mass of information gained by 
trailing him, and by study of the documents seized 
in his office, show that he had spies along the water 
front on every big steamship pier. He had eaves- 
droppers in hotels, telephone switchboards, among 
porters, window-cleaners, among bank clerks, cor- 
poration employes and in the Police Department. 

To Roger B. Wood, formerly assistant United 
States District- Attorney in New York, is due the 
credit for the unfolding of the intricate and varied 
schemes charged against Koenig. He studied the 
evidence for months as it was developed by Fed- 
eral agents under Superintendent Offley of the 
New York office and Captain Tunney, and 
prepared for trial the cases against the German 
agent. 

One of Koenig's spies was listed in his book as 

90 



"Special Agent A. S.," namely Otto F. Mottola, 
a detective in the warrant squad of the New York 
police force whom he paid for special work. The 
note book revealed Mottola as Antonio Marino, 
afterward changed to Antonio Salvatore. Evi- 
dence was produced at Mottola's trial at Police 
Headquarters that Koenig paid him for investi- 
gating a passenger who sailed on the Bergens- 
fjord; that he often call up Mottola, asked ques- 
tions and received answers which Koenig's sten- 
ographer took down in short-hand. In other 
words, Koenig sought to keep closely informed as 
to the developments at Police Headquarters, and 
to be advised, perhaps, of the inquiry being made 
by the police into the activities of the Germans. 
Mottola was dismissed from the force because of 
false statements made to his superiors when asked 
about Koenig. 

STARTING TROUBLE IN CANADA 

"P. K." also despatched men to Canada to gain 
information concerning the Canadian prepara- 
tions for war, and facts that could be used by the 
Germans here in planning attacks upon munition 
factories, railroads and transportation facilities 
in the Dominion. An Irish employe of the Atlas 
Line has been arrested on a charge of planning 
with Koenig to start a "military enterprise" 
against the Dominion. The employe, named Jus- 
tice, is accused of going to Quebec to ascertain the 
number of troops which were being transported 

91 



by the Dominion of Canada to ports in France 
and Great Britain; the names of the steamships 
on which said troops were being transported ; the 
kind and quantity of supplies which were being 
shipped from the Dominion to France and Great 
Britain, and other information which would or 
might be of value to the German Government, 
and which would assist the military operations of 
the German Government. 

The complaint charges that the undertaking 
was one of hazard, and came within the purview 
of the statute forbidding the undertaking of any 
military venture with this country as a basis of 
operation. It says further that Justice and Metz- 
ler, Koenig's secretary, left New York on Sep- 
tember 15, 1914, and went to Quebec; that 
Koenig left New York on September 18 and met 
Metzler in Portland, Me., and that he went to 
Burlington, Vt., where on September 25 he con- 
ferred with Justice. The authorities also say that 
Metzler and Justice gained a varied assortment 
of information in Quebec ; that they inspected the 
fortifications there, went to the training camps, 
observed the number of men, the condition of the 
men and estimated the time when they would be 
sent to the front. 

VARIOUS ALIASES 

In his meetings with various persons who had 
been picked for some daring enterprise, Koenig 
is accused of having employed various names. 

92 



The Federal authorities give him at least thirteen, 
among which are Wegenkamp, Wegener, Kelly, 
Winter, Perkins, Stemler, Rectorberg, Boehm, 
Kennedy, James, Smith, Murphy and W. T. 
Munday. 

After indictments had been returned against 
some of the Hamburg- American officials for con- 
spiring to defraud the United States of legal 
clearance papers, Koenig, assisted by a private 
detective in the pay of Captain Boy-Ed, de- 
veloped a scheme to get affidavits from tugboat 
captains to the effect that they had supplied Eng- 
lish war vessels patrolling off Sandy Hook with 
provisions. 

The plan was to turn sentiment against the 
British hy proving that the British were doing 
the same thing that had been charged to the Ger- 
mans, Accordingly, Koenig called a number of 
tugboat captains to a room in the Great Eastern 
Hotel, New York, and offered them a contract to 
haul provisions to the English cruisers. He told 
them that the captains were extremely suspicious 
of boats approaching the war vessels, and the 
affidavits were necessary to allay their fears that 
the tugboats might have a few Germans with 
bombs on board. So, in return for sworn state- 
ments from them to the effect that they already 
had been carrying supplies out to other English 
cruisers, he, Koenig, was to give them a monthly 
contract to do the work. Many of the tugboat 
captains signed the affidavits ; but the scheme was 

91 



exposed before the Germans really made any use 
of the documents. So carefully did Koenig work 
that he made the stenographers who took the 
statements transcribe the notes in his presence, 
give him the shorthand notes and he immediately 
destroyed them. 

SPIES IN BANKS 

Through the arrest of Koenig and the facts 
obtained thereby, one of the mysteries concerning 
the Germans' method of getting information 
about the shipment of munitions of war to the 
Allies was cleared. They knew the number of 
the freight car rushing to the Atlantic seaboard 
and its exact contents. They knew the ship's 
hold into which that product was to be placed; 
but how they got this data was a mystery until 
Koenig was caught. Then Metzler, Koenig's 
secretary, made a confession that cleared the 
mystery. Agent Adams got the confession. 

Besides having spies in some of the factories 
throughout the country, the Germans had one 
great fountain of information in the foreign de- 
partment of the National City Bank, an institu- 
tion that has carried hundreds of millions of dol- 
lars in financing the purchase of supplies for the 
Entente Powers. That source was Frederick 
Schleindl, a German who has since been con- 
victed of selling stolen information and sen- 
tenced to three years in a New York State prison. 

Schleindl, only 23 years old, came to this coun- 

94 



try from Germany several years ago, obtained 
work with a private banking firm, and after the 
war started was shifted to the National City 
Bank. He had influence to get the position , and, 
incidentally, it may be said, that for years prior 
to the war German agents, trained financiers, 
have been stationed in New York, making friends 
and learning conditions, so that at the critical 
time they could, by underground means, succeed 
in getting positions for such men as Schleindl 
who would bertay their trust. 

SECRET INFORMATION ON BANKS 

When the war started Schleindl registered 
with the German Consul, giving his address and 
his place of business. One day word reached him 
that a German wished to see him, and going to 
the Hotel Manhattan he was approached by a 
man who introduced himself as Koenig. The 
latter sounded him thoroughly as to his senti- 
ments on the war, and then outlined the scheme 
by which Schleindl was to help Germany and 
make $25 a week. Schleindl was to keep his 
eyes open for all letters and cable messages bear- 
ing on the deposits of the Allies with the bank, 
the payments of orders and other facts bearing 
on the war. 

The bank clerk succumbed, either through 
patriotism or love of money. And Koenig had 
placed his finger on exactly the right spot; so 
accurate was he that there seems no doubt that 



he received guidance from a master spy higher 
up, who knew banking operations thoroughly, 
and where to go for information. It quickly de- 
veloped that Schleindl could obtain information 
of two very important kinds. 

First, he received in his department cable mes- 
sages bearing on war orders and deposits by the 
Allies. The day he was arrested he had in his 
pocket certain messages and letters addressed to 
the National City Bank. One had come from the 
Ban que Beige Pour Etr angers in regard to a 
shipment of 2,000,000 rifles that was being 
handled through the Hudson Trust Company. 
Another message that he picked up and handed 
over to Koenig had come from the Russian Gov- 
ernment, directing the bank to place at the dis- 
posal of Colonel Golejewski, a Russian naval 
attache, a large amount of money for the pur- 
chase of war materials. 

Secondly, the bank paid for orders of goods as 
soon as they had been inspected and delivered on 
board ships at the seaboard. The manufacturers 
sent their bills of lading to the bank, showing the 
carload shipments and the vessel to which they 
were consigned. Thus accurate information was 
obtained as to every item, the railroad route of 
shipment and the name of the vessel. All this 
information was turned over to Koenig, 
who passed it along for dissemination to the 
proper persons. Consequently, the Germans 
knew exactly what ships to attack; in whai 



vessels to place their fire bombs or other 
explosives. 

Schleindl was accustomed to meet Koenig al- 
most every night and hand him papers. Some- 
times he would go to Koenig's office, where "P. 
K.," Metzler and Schleindl would spend many 
hours copying the documents. Other times 
Schleindl would give the papers to Koenig and 
receive them on his way to work, so that they 
would be in their proper place the moment any 
bank official desired them. Koenig pleaded 
guilty in the Court of Special Sessions to an in- 
formation charging him with having corrupted 
the boy to sell such information. Koenig was set 
free on a suspended sentence. 

The National City Bank leak is only one of a 
hundred channels through which Koenig and his 
agents received information. Koenig compiled it 
with the aid of his secretary, conferred with von 
Papen or Boy-Ed. He would spend a few weeks 
gathering facts, and then he would pack hundreds 
of papers into a trunk and run down to Wash- 
ington. Arriving there he would take a taxi to a 
rooming house, where he would unpack his trunk, 
and put the contents into another trunk in an 
adjoining room. 

As weeks went by and Koenig believed he was 
escaping police and Federal espionage, he grew 
bolder, more defiant of the authorities, and louder 
in his talk. He treated his employes with less 
consideration. He always followed a principle 

97 



of never hiring the same reservist for a second 
job. Then he quarreled with George Fuchs, a 
relative whom he had employed to go to Buffalo 
with him. The police heard of that quarrel, and 
quickly got into the confidence of Fuchs, obtained 
his confession, and enough information on which 
to arrest Koenig. He has been indicted by the 
Federal authorities twice on charges that may net 
him six years, if convicted. 

The two men were active workers for a time. 
Koenig continues in New York but von Igel 
sailed with Count Bernstorff when the latter was 
dismissed from this country. 



98 



CHAPTER V 

CAPTAIN KARL BOY-ED, 

THE EMPEROR'S SOCIAL DANDY 

AND VON TIRPITZ'S TOOL 

IN the days before the Kaiser booted his spur 
through the treaties of Europe, you could 
observe, almost any afternoon, a faultlessly 
attired man — well built, his big, round head rest- 
ing firmly on a powerful neck — sauntering down 
Connecticut Avenue, the Rotten Row or Fifth 
Avenue of Washington. Jauntily swinging his 
cane and puffing at his inevitable cigarette, he 
would bow gracefully in greeting the members of 
the capitol's smart set. He could be seen later at 
tea at the Chevy Chase Club, then among govern- 
ment officials and diplomats at the Metropolitan 
Club, or a guest at the Army and Navy Club. He 
was much desired at the most brilliant functions 
in New York in the winter, or at the resorts where, 
in the summer, the wealthiest and most exclusive 
Manhattanites gathered. One always found him 
graceful, suave, clever at repartee, effervescing 
natural humor — the object of admiration on the 
part of matchmaking mothers, and the reported 
seeker after an American heiress — but always 
mingling with the persons in official, diplomatic 

99 



and navy circles who knew the innermost govern- 
ment secrets. 

He was Germany's Beau Brummel, Captain 
Karl Boy-Ed, the Kaiser's naval attache, seem- 
ingly more interested in the frills, foibles and 
gayeties of society than in the supremacy of the 
German Navy. Very much like an American in 
appearance, Oriental in his sense of luxury, and 
possessing the French quality of subtlety in 
rapid-fire wit, he lacked apparently every vestige 
of the much vaunted Teutonic efficiency. He 
would occasionally, however, drop out of the 
scenes of beauty and charm, traveling about the 
country, visiting warships, tramping over coast 
country, scrutinizing fortifications, or places 
where Uncle Sam would have coast defences until 
finally it began to be whispered that Captain 
Boy-Ed knew as much about the American Navy 
and coast forts as did the naval officers them- 
selves. Under the veneer of lightness and grace- 
ful ease, the naval attache hid with the craft to 
which that Turkish part of his ancestry made him 
heir, the persistent methodical thoroughness of 
his German ancestry. 

And, when the Kaiser set the dogs of war 
loose, Boy-Ed shunted aside the cloak of frivolity, 
disappeared almost entirely from festive gather- 
ings, settled down by day to room 801, No. 11 
Broadway, New York, receiving code messages 
as "Nordmann," and by night to his suite in the 
German Club, where he delved into records, con- 

100 



ferred with associates and elaborated plans for 
activities on the seven seas. From a hale, jolly 
fellow he became — as if by the shift of the magic 
wand of a Turkish sorcerer — a veritable machine, 
mind and body, working for the Kaiser. A man 
of great brain power, erudite, fertile in schemes, 
for long an aid to Admiral von Tirpitz, he as- 
sumed charge in America of all enterprises deal- 
ing with the naval phases of the Teutonic warfare 
in this country and in or near American waters. 
These were activities which, despite his boast: 
"They haven't got any evidence against B. E.," 
caused his dismissal from America by President 
Wilson. 

boy-ed's career 

Born of a Turkish father and German mother 
— the latter, Ida Boy-Ed, a novelist much loved 
in Germany — he possessed an unusual combina- 
tion of traits, a mingling of Oriental subtlety, the 
brutal frankness of the Prussian, and the artistic 
genius of his mother. He elected for the navy, 
and early displayed qualities that attracted von 
Tirpitz's attention. The admiral took him up 
and made him one of his "Big Six," young Ger- 
man officers who were admitted to the naval lord's 
most secret councils and trained for just such 
executive work and such emergencies as the great 
war produced. Having both a literary and con- 
structive ability, in addition to unusual qualities 
as a tactician and naval officer, he was selected by 

101 



Grand Admiral von Tirpitz as his chief lieuten- 
ant, and was made the head of the news division. 
As such, he had charge of propaganda enlighten- 
ing the German people and arousing a demand 
for a bigger navy. He prepared articles for the 
newspapers and compiled pamphlets arguing for 
many battleships, in all of which he cleverly in- 
stilled a distrust of England. Prior to each 
appropriation for an increase in the German 
fleet, Boy-Ed carried on a press campaign 
designed to educate the public as to the urgent 
necessity for more dreadnoughts and subma- 
rines. By this means, an appropriation equal 
to a hundred million dollars was obtained in 
1910. 

For five years, prior to his arrival in Wash- 
ington in 1911 as the Kaiser's naval representa- 
tive, he served under von Tirpitz, making trips 
around the world, observing and working out the 
details of Germany's plans for breaking Great 
Britain's sea power. Because of the work which 
he performed, the unusual ability which he dis- 
played, and because Germany was seeking to sur- 
pass the naval power of the United States, then 
the second only to Great Britain, he was sent to 
this country. When he arrived here, he impressed 
Americans by his knowledge of America and 
American ideas. With ample tact and keen in- 
sight into American customs, he began immedi- 
ately to make himself almost an American. 
Speaking English fluently and possessing an un- 

102 



usually attractive personality, he made himself 
extremely popular. 

NAVAL STUDENT IN TIMES OF PEACE 

His duties in peace times, naturally, were to 
study the American Navy and gain whatever 
facts he could about American war vessels, the 
personnel of the navy, the government's plans for 
increasing the fleet's power and building up coast 
defenses; also to pick up whatever he could, 
openly or stealthily, about the secret plans of 
America in the use of her battle-fleet. When the 
war started, a thousand and one more tasks de- 
volved upon him. As von Papen was in Mexico, 
he had for a time to look after the military 
attache's secret service, and, after being relieved 
of that, he devoted himself to the manifold details 
peculiar to naval intelligence. Like von Papen, 
he, too, had a staff of experts. They began, under 
his direction, delving into every phase of Amer- 
ican naval activities, seeking information about 
the naval plans of the Allies, striving to exert 
their influence to prevent the shipment of arms 
and ammunition from this country. Boy-Ed's 
work lay also in supervising the registration 
of naval reservists with the German consuls, 
providing for the return of as many as pos- 
sible of them to the Fatherland, assign- 
ing spies to the country's enemies, and collect- 
ing all naval information bearing upon the 
war. 

103 



WATCHING BRITISH VESSELS 

Seated in his room 801, Captain Boy-Ed 
gathered a great mass of facts of value to Ger- 
many from enemy sources and from neutral na- 
tions. From his room, which was stacked with 
maps of the sea and steamer routes, he sent direc- 
tions to his spies. He forwarded information 
about ships — English merchantmen and British 
warships — that could be utilized by the German 
Government in raids on Allied commerce. He 
also gave directions for provisioning the German 
raiders scouring the Seven Seas for enemy ships 
— an enterprise just as romantic — though in vio- 
lation of American laws — as the spectacular 
dashes of the Karlsruhe, Emden and the Prince 
Eitel Friedrich. 

Here was a project in which before the war and 
in preparation for it, the German Admiralty and 
the Hamburg- American Steamship Company 
participated; and after hostilities began, it was 
simply necessary for the captain through his staff 
of assistants or in person to issue orders. The 
Atlantic phase of the enterprise, its financing, its 
spectacular features and its illegality were pre- 
sented to a Federal court in New York by Roger 
B. Wood, the Assistant United States Attorney, 
at the trial and conviction of several Hamburg- 
American Line officials: Dr. Karl Buenz, its gen- 
eral representative in America ; George Koetter, 
supervising engineer; Adolf Hachmeister, pur- 
chasing agent; Joseph Poeppinghaus, second 

104 



officer and supercargo ; on the charge of conspir- 
ing to obtain from the collectors of the ports false 
clearances for ships in connection with the coal- 
ing and provisioning of raiders. The Pacific 
phase of the scheme has been unearthed by 
United States District Attorney Preston in San 
Francisco. 

SMUGGLING SUPPLIES TO RAIDERS 

Two years before Germany sent a declaration 
of war to England, and just when a crisis in 
European affairs was impending, Dr. Karl 
Buenz, who never before had engaged in steam- 
ship business, came to New York as the American 
head of the Hamburg- American Line. Prior to 
that he had been a judge in Germany, a consul in 
Chicago and New York, and a minister to 
Mexico. One of the first things which came to 
his attention was the completion of a contract 
between the Admiralty Division of the German 
Government and the steamship company for the 
provisioning, during war, of German warships at 
sea from America as a base. Arrangement also 
was made for communication between these ships 
and the company by the Admiralty's code. The 
documents dealing with this agreement were kept 
locked up in the Germany Embassy in Washing- 
ton, and the Hamburg- American officials de- 
clined to produce them at the trial, "because in 
that agreement," Prosecutor Wood asserted, "I 
venture to say the whole plan whereby false clear- 

105 



ances should be obtained is worked out in 
detail." 

When Germany stood on the brink of war 
and England stood ready to pen her in by a 
blockade, the Admiralty Division sent its orders 
to make ready to provision the raiders. Dr. 
Buenz himself on July 31, 1914 — before the war 
— received a cable which he read, and then at once 
sent to the German Embassy for safe-keeping. 
Straightway Boy-Ed was in and out of Dr. 
Buenz's office, giving directions as to the war- 
ships needing supplies and whither the provision 
ships should proceed by routes outside the regular 
freight lines. He kept urging upon Dr. Buenz 
the necessity of haste, and even before the Ger- 
man Government advanced the cash, the ships 
were chartered — others purchased — under bonds 
that guaranteed payment to the owners in the 
event of seizure. Twelve or more ships in all 
set forth from Atlantic ports, carrying coal and 
food supplies bought with Hamburg- American 
cash. 

The steamship Berwind, which had been char- 
tered and loaded in a hurry, was the first to sail. 
When some of the conspirators met in Dr. 
Buenz's office, there was hesitancy as to who 
should apply for clearance papers — documents of 
which Dr. Buenz testified he knew nothing. 
They finally told G. B. Kulenkampf, a banker 
and exporter, that the Berwind was loaded with 
coal — she had coal and provisions — and told him 

106 



to get the clearance papers. He did so, swearing 
to a false manifest, as he afterward admitted. In 
getting such clearance papers, Germany's agents 
aimed to prevent the Allies from learning about 
the supply ships. Germany desired, naturally, 
to carry on this work secretly in order to deceive 
her enemies and prevent her adversaries from 
knowing where the German cruisers were. 

Such a ruse may be a legitimate trick in war, 
but the German Government or her agents had no 
right to use the American Government in such 
an enterprise. So men employed by the Ham- 
burg-American Line went to the collector of 
the ports from which these ships sailed, making 
affidavits as to the cargo — generally false — and 
the destination for which they sailed — also false, 
On board these ships — the Berwind and the Lo- 
renzo j sailing from New York presumably for 
Buenos Aires on August 5 and 6, 1914, respec- 
tively; the Thor from Newport News for Fray 
Bentos, Uruguay; the Heina from Philadelphia 
in August, for La Guayra ; the Mowinckle, Nepos 
and others — the officials put supercargoes bearing 
secret instructions. These men had authority to 
give sailing orders to the captains once they were 
outside the three-mile limit. They knew that the 
ships were not bound for the ports designated, 
but to lonely spots on the high seas, where they 
would lie in wait for the arrival of the German 
cruisers whose captains, would receive the "tip" 
by wireless. 

107 



RISKY WORK FOR SKIPPERS 

Very few of the supercargoes, however, accom- 
plished their aims. The Berwind reached a point 
near Trinidad where Supercargo Poeppinghaus 
directed the ship to lie to. Presently five Ger- 
man ships, the Cap Trafalgar, Pontus, Elinor 
Woerman, Santa Lucia and Eber appeared, and 
after the task of transferring the supplies to them 
was begun, the British converted cruiser Car- 
mania came up. A brisk fight ensued between 
the Carmania and the Cap Trafalgar, lasting for 
two hours, and ending when the German ship 
sank. 

One representative of the Hamburg- American 
Line sought to use bribery to effect his purpose. 
One of the ships chartered was the JJnita, in 
charge of Eno Olsen, a Canadian citizen of Nor- 
wegian birth. The German supercargo made a 
mistake in thinking that Olsen was friendly to 
Germany. When, however, the supercargo ex- 
plained to him after they had got out to sea, what 
the purpose of the cruise was, Captain Olsen 
balked. 

' 'Nothing doing,' I told the supercargo," Cap- 
tain Olsen testified, with a Norwegian twist to 
his pronunciation. "So the supercargo offered 
me $500 to change my course. 'Nothing doing — 
nothing doing for a million dollars,' I told him. 

"The third day out he offered me $10,000. 
'Nothing doing.' So," concluded Captain Olsen 
with finality, "I showed him my citizenship 

108 



paper. I said the Unita cleared for Cadiz; and 
to Cadiz she goes. After we got there I sold the 
cargo and looked up the British Consul." 

The provisions for each ship were ordered 
under directions from the Hamburg- American 
officials who eventually provided the money. The 
Hamburg- American Company received three 
payments of $500,000 each from the Deutsche 
Bank in Berlin. In addition, $750,000 was sent 
to Boy-Ed by exchange through Kulenkampf s 
firm, Wessels, Kulenkampf & Company, from 
the Deutsche Bank, making $2,225,000 in all. 
Telling of the receipt of the money, Kulenkampf 
testified : 

"Some time after that, Captain Boy-Ed came 
to me and asked if I had received money from 
Berlin. I said, 'Yes/ and he told me that it was 
for him. I asked him to obtain instructions, and 
a little later I was telephoned to hold the money 
at the disposal of Boy-Ed. I followed the in- 
structions of Captain Boy-Ed. He instructed 
me at different times to pay over certain amounts, 
either to banks or to firms. I transferred $350,- 
000 to the Nevada National Bank in San Fran- 
cisco, $150,000 to the North German Lloyd, $63,- 
000 to the North German Lloyd. That left a 
balance of approximately $160,000 which was 
placed to the credit of the Deutsche Bank with 
Gontard & Company, successors of my former 
firm. That amount was reduced to about $57,000 
by payments drawn by Captain Boy-Ed's request 

109 



to the order of the Hamburg- American Steam- 
ship Company/' 

MONEY SPENT FREELY 

How part of the money was spent is shown by 
the following account of payments through the 
Hamburg- A merican Line : 

Steamer Total Payment 

Thor $113,879.72 

Berwind 73,221.85 

Lorenzo 430,182.59 

Heina 288,142.06 

Nepos 119,037.60 

Mowinckel 113,867.18 

Unita 67,766.44 

So'mmerstad 45,826.75 

Fram 55,053.23 

Graecia 29,143.59 

Macedonia 39,139.98 

Navarra 44,133.50 

Total $1,419,394.49 

But Boy-Ed's supervision of supplies to the 
raiders covered both the Atlantic and the Pacific 
oceans. While the Hamburg- American took 
charge of handling the supplies in the North 
and South Atlantic, another German agency is 
accused of doing similar work on the Pacific. 
That accounts for Boy-Ed's transfer of money 
to the West, where his cash also was used in the 
purchase of at least one ship. Boy-Ed's funds, 
amounting to more than $600,000 have been 
traced to the Pacific. In following these pay- 
ments it is important to observe how differently 
and more cleverly Boy-Ed handled his money 
than von Papen. Unlike the military attache, 

no 



he paid out little money by personal check; but 
he had accounts with various commercial firms 
to whom he gave orders for payments. Working 
with the ingenuity of an adept in covering up his 
tracks, he caused money in large amounts to be 
shifted from one bank to another, from one firm 
to another, through various cities until after 
myriad devious turnings and twisting it finally 
reached its destination. He used various com- 
mercial concerns as his bankers. 

Out on the Pacific Coast, Boy-Ed employed 
members of the German consulate to distribute 
the money and supervise provisioning. Two 
indictments returned against Germans and others 
in San Francisco charge that an effort was made 
to employ that port as a "naval base" for pro- 
visioning the German raiders ; that false manifests 
were filed for the succoring of merchantmen ; that 
supplies were transferred to the German raiders. 
More than $150,000, it is specifically charged, 
was paid out for this purpose by the German 
consulate. 

The outfitting of the steamships Sacramento, 
Olsen and Mahoney, Mazatlan and the bark 
Retriever are said to be charged to the defend- 
ants. One device employed in San Francisco 
Bay to outwit the Government officers watching 
for violations of the neutrality laws was to fill the 
Retriever with coal, and then announce that the 
vessel would be used for an expedition on the 
high seas to take movie pictures of a stirring sea 

ill 



drama. But the officials were not hoodwinked. 
The steamer Sacramento, formerly the German- 
owned Alexandria, which, after the war started, 
was bought by the Northern and Southern 
Steamship Company and which flew the Amer- 
ican flag, left port piled high with supplies of 
all sorts, including sauerkraut and beer, and 
reached Valparaiso, Chile, empty. All her sup- 
plies were transferred to German cruisers and a 
German supply ship at Masefuero Island, near 
the Chilean coast. 

Captain Fred Jebsen, a lieutenant in the Ger- 
man naval reserve, took a cargo of coal south on 
his boat, the Mazatlan, for delivery at Guaymas, 
Sonora, Mexico. He transferred it to lighters, 
which carried it to the German cruiser Leipzig. 
Jebsen also is said to have planned to pilot a ship 
to India, and being frustrated, made his way in 
disguise to Germany, where he is reported to have 
been drowned by the sinking of a submarine. 
The Olson and Mahony, sl steam schooner, was 
loaded with supplies, but after considerable con- 
troversy with customs officials was unloaded. In 
the early days of the war, the cruisers Leipzig 
and Number g lay off San Francisco. The 
Leipzig put to port for supplies which were 
granted in quantities permissible under interna- 
tional law. Efforts to supply still further quan- 
tities are alleged by the Government. 

One of the picturesque incidents of the pro- 
visioning, which reveals how minutely Captain 

112 



Boy-Ed looked after finances and sets forth other 
phases of his work on the high seas, as directed 
from No. 11 Broadway, is revealed in the piratical 
cruise of the good ship Gladstone, rechristened 
under German auspices Marina Quezada. Her 
owner, when she bobbed into the view of Captain 
Boy-Ed, was a Norwegian syndicate; but what 
money was behind that group it has not been 
possible to learn. Under the name of Gladstone, 
the ship had plied between Canada and Australia ; 
but shortly after the outbreak of the war she put 
into Newport News. Then Captain Hans Suhren, 
a sturdy German formerly of the Pacific coast, 
appeared in New York, called upon Captain 
Boy-Ed, who took most kindly interest in him, 
and then departed for Newport News. Here he 
assumed charge of the Gladstone, 

"I paid $280,000 in cash for her," he told First 
Officer Bentzen. After making arrangements 
for his crew, he flitted back to New York, where 
he received messages in care of "Nordmann, 
Room 801, 11 Broadway, N. Y. C." Meantime, 
in consultation with Captain Boy-Ed, the captain 
received instructions to erect a wireless plant on 
his ship — the equipment having already been 
shipped to the Marina Quezada — and to hire a 
wireless operator. Boy-Ed handed Suhren a 
German naval code book, gave him a map with 
routes marked out and sailing instructions that 
would take him to the South Seas, there to await 
German cruisers. Food supplies, ordered for a 

in 



steamer which had been unable to sail, were wait- 
ing on the piers at Newport News and Captain 
Boy-Ed ordered them put on the Marina 
Quezada. Two cases of revolvers also were sent 
to the boat. In a like manner, it may be observed, 
ships on the Pacific had been equipped secretly 
with arms and wireless. 

Again Suhren went back to his boat, kept the 
wireless operators busy, hurried the loading of 
the cargo, which was under the supervision of an 
employee of the North German Lloyd, and need- 
ing more money before sailing in December, 1914, 
he drew a draft for $1,000 on the Hamburg- 
American Line .wiring Hachmeister, the purchas- 
ing agent, to communicate with "Room 801, 11 
Broadway," the office of our friend Boy-Ed. 

Prior to his departure, the skipper had diffi- 
culty with the registration of his ship. Though 
he insisted he owned her, a corporation in New 
York whose stockholders were Costa Ricans were 
laying claim to ownership, for they really chris- 
tened her, and got provisional registration for 
her from the Costa Rican minister in Washing- 
ton. It was necessary, however, in order for the 
ship to get permanent registration, to go to Port 
Limon, Costa Rica, and register there. So haul- 
ing down the Norwegian flag, that had fluttered 
over the ship as the Gladstone, Captain Suhren 
ran up the Costa Rican emblem. Then, having 
loaded his ship and having obtained false clear- 
ance papers stating his destination as Valparaiso s 

114 



based upon a false manifest, sailed for Port 
Limon. But the Costa Rican authorities declined 
to give Suhren permanent papers, and, accord- 
ingly, being without authority to fly any flag 
and in such status not permitted under interna- 
tional law to leave port, Suhren was in a plight. 
He waited, however, until a heavy storm came 
up one night, then quietly slipping his anchor, he 
sped out into the high seas, a veritable pirate. 
Finally, as he neared Pernambuco, he ran up the 
Norwegian flag, put into port and got into such 
difficulties with the authorities that his ship was 
interned. His supplies never reached the raiders, 
and Boy-Ed, at No. 11 Broadway, learned from 
Suhren of another fiasco. Suhren is supposed to 
have been taken prisoner to Canada. 

Had the Hamburg- American officials carried 
out their part of the enterprise by means of the 
false clearance papers — and the same applies to 
Boy-Ed — a guest of the nation — to others en- 
gaged in the project — they would have put the 
American Government in the position of officially 
endorsing their work of deceit and stealth. "Is 
it a nice thing," asked Prosecutor Wood, "to have 
this Government endorse the lies of these defen- 
dants?" 

Boy-Ed, furthermore, violated the clause of 
The Hague conference of 1907 which says: "Bel- 
ligerents are forbidden to use neutral ports and 
waters as a base of naval operation against their 
adversaries" 

in 



QUEER WIRELESS CODES 

Another operation that appealed to Captain 
Boy-Ed's ingenuity was the use of the wireless 
to frustrate the enemy. He had given implicit 
instructions to Skipper Suhren in regard to the 
use of the wireless. Members of the crew of the 
Sacramento are accused of breaking the Govern- 
ment seal and using the radio plant. The Govern- 
ment officials also found such extended misuse of 
the German-owned wireless plants in America 
that they were obliged either to close them down 
or take them over. The Sayville, Long Island, 
plant, finally was taken over and operated by the 
government. 

CUTTING IN ON MESSAGES 

But Boy-Ed delighted in circumventing the 
Federal authorities. A few instances have been 
published but there remain hundreds of cases 
which the Federal radio inspectors have uncov- 
ered. To Chief Flynn of the Secret Service and 
Charles E. Apgar, an inventor, much credit is 
due for detecting one ingenious method used by 
Boy-Ed and others for sending out wireless mes- 
sages. Apgar, an enthusiastic wireless operator, 
spent much time "listening in" to the messages 
sent every night from the wireless plants at Say- 
ville, Long Island, to Germany. Finally he hit 
upon the scheme of recording the splash and 
splutter of the radio in a phonograph. After 
perfecting his device he be^an to "can" the Berlin 

116 



messages — coming and going — every night. 
Then reeling off these messages on his phono- 
graph, he would study again and again the dots 
and dashes of each word. He observed that mes- 
sages had been repeated by the Sayville operator, 
that numbers were thrown in at intervals and 
finally that between words there were gaps of 
varying lengths — all means undoubtedly of send- 
ing mesages in code — a new language of science 
invented by the Germans. Many messages were 
sent by Boy-Ed, himself. It was after a thor- 
ough study of these canned messages that the 
government began to operate the Sayville plant 
itself. 

FRAUDULENT PASSPORTS 

Like von Papen, Boy-Ed was under orders to 
send spies to the adversaries' countries, to make 
arrangements for naval reservists to return to 
Germany, all of which required the use of fraudu- 
lent passports. While there have been charges 
that Germany had a factory for forging pass- 
ports and while the New York World charged, 
at the time of Boy-Ed's recall, that he had deal- 
ings with a gang of forgers and counterfeiters, 
who made passports, there is evidence that the 
naval attache did pay money to German reser- 
vists, who procured passports fraudulently. One 
of these men was Richard Peter Stegler, a Prus- 
sian, 33 years old, who had served in the German 
Navy and afterward came to this country to 

117 



start on his life work. Before the war, he had 
applied for his first citizenship papers; but his 
name had not been removed from the German 
naval reserve list. 

"After the war started," says Stegler, a well- 
dressed young man with rather stern features, 
"I received orders to return home. I was told 
that everything was in readiness for me. I was 
assigned to the naval station at Cuxhaven. My 
uniform, my cap, my boots and my locker were all 
set aside for me, and I was told just where to 
go and what to do. But I could not get back at 
that time and I kept on with my work." 

Stegler then became a member of the German 
secret service in New York. "There is not a 
ship that leaves the harbor, not a cargo that is 
loaded or unloaded, but that some member of 
this secret organization watches and reports every 
detail," he said afterward. "All this information 
is transmitted in code to the German Govern- 
ment." In January, 1915, if not earlier, Stegler 
was sent to Boy-Ed's office, and there he received 
instructions to get a passport and make arrange- 
ments to go to England as a spy. Boy-Ed paid 
him $178, which he admits, but denies that it was 
to buy a passport. Stegler immediately got in 
touch with Gustave Cook and Richard Madden, 
of Hoboken, and made use of Madden's birth 
certificate and citizenship in obtaining a passport 
from the American Government. Stegler has 
pleaded guilty to the charge and the two men 

us 



were convicted of conspiracy in connection with 
the project. Stegler paid $100 for the document. 
Stegler, Cook and Madden each served a term 
on BlackwelFs Island. 

"I was told to make the voyage to England 
on the Lusitania" continued Stegler. "My in- 
structions were as follows: 'Stop at Liverpool, 
examine the Mersey River, obtain the names, ex- 
act locations and all possible information con- 
cerning warships around Liverpool, ascertain the 
amount of munitions of war being unloaded on 
the Liverpool docks from the United States, as- 
certain their ultimate destination, and obtain a 
detailed list of all the maritime ships in the 
harbor. 

NEW YORK, THE CENTRE FOR SPIES 

"I was to make constant, though guarded in- 
quiries, of the location of the dreadnought squad- 
ron which the Germans in New York understand 
was anchored somewhere near St. George's Chan- 
nel. I was to appear as an American citizen 
soliciting trade. Captain Boy-Ed advised me to 
get letters of introduction to business firms. He 
made arrangements so that I received such letters 
and in *one letter were enclosed some rare stamps 
which were to be a proof to certain persons in 
England that I was working for the Germans. 

"After having studied Liverpool, I was to go 
to London and make an investigation of the 
Thames and its shipping. From there, I was to 

119 



proceed to Holland and work my way to the 
German border. While my passport did not in- 
clude Germany, I was to give the captain of the 
nearest regiment a secret number which would 
indicate to him that I was a reservist on spy duty. 
By that means, I was to hurry to Eisendal, head 
of the secret service in Berlin." 

Stegler did not make the trip because his wife 
learned of the enterprise and begged him not to 
go. He also had been detected by Federal Agent 
Adams and was placed under arrest in February, 
1915, shortly after he decided to stay at home. In 
his possession were all the letters and telegrams 
exchanged between him and Boy-Ed, none of 
which, however, said anything about passports. 
There was one telegram from "Winko," who was 
Captain Boy-Ed's servant. 

LODY SENT TO DEATH 

Stegler also said that he had been told that 
Boy-Ed previously had sent to England Karl 
Hans Lody, the German who in November, 1915, 
had been put to death as a spy in the Tower of 
London. Lody also had been in the navy, had 
served on the Kaiser's yacht and then had come 
to this country and worked as an agent for the 
Hamburg- American Line, going from one place 
to another. 

Still another man who had a fraudulent Ger- 
men passport was a German naval reservist, who 
had shipped as a hand on the freighter Evelyn 

120 



carrying horses to Bermuda. On one trip that 
he took, practically all of the horses were poisoned 
and were lost. He, however, was arrested by 
Federal authorities on the charge of using the 
name of a dead man in order to get an American 
passport. 

In passport matters and the handling of spies, 
Captain Boy-Ed was more acute and more subtle 
than his colleague, von Papen. Nevertheless, the 
Government officials succeeded in getting a clear 
outline of his activities. It seems quite likely that 
after the arrest of Ruroede in December, 1914, 
when suspicion was directed to von Papen as the 
superintendent of the passport bureau, the man- 
agement thereof was switched to Boy-Ed. The 
exposure of Boy-Ed's connection with Stegler 
made it necessary for the German Government to 
change its system once more. 

Boy-Ed, as has been shown, had supervision 
of naval affairs and matters pertaining to the sea. 
He issued information to the press bearing on 
Germany's conduct of her naval warfare. He 
made pleas for an embargo on the export of arms 
and ammunition. He received from Count von 
Bernstorff all information which the Ambassador 
obtained bearing on that question and, on one 
occasion, the Count sent him a list of the coun- 
tries which had forbidden the export of war 
supplies. 

The conviction throughout the country has been 
steadily growing, since the exposure of von 

121 



Papen's methods, that Boy-Ed was not an inno- 
cent associate of the military attache. The Fed- 
eral authorities, in fact, have unearthed a large 
amount of evidence to show active participation 
by Boy-Ed in these enterprises, for to him they 
simply were a part of the war of Germany on 
her enemies. Colonel Boosevelt, who has made 
a special study of Germany's crimes on neutral 
territories, has expressed the sentiment of Ameri- 
cans in a speech at the Academy of Music, 
Brooklyn, on January 30, 1916, in these words: 

"The German and Austrian governments 
through their accredited representatives in the 
embassies here have carried on a campaign of 
bomb and torch against our industries. The ac- 
tion our government should have taken in view of 
this campaign was not action against Dumba, 
von Papen and Boy-Ed but the holding of the 
German and Austrian governments themselves 
responsible for every munition plant that was 
blown up or damaged." 

The roll of Boy-Ed's associates, as indicating 
his knowledge of plots of violence, is illuminating. 
He employed Paul Koenig for a series of secret 
activities. He was said to have known Captain 
Eno Bode, dock superintendent of the Hamburg- 
American Steamship Line in Hoboken, and Cap- 
tain Otto Wolpert, another dock superintendent, 
both of whom, it is charged, were involved in a 
bond conspiracy. 

Boy -Ed and von Papen, in many secret confer- 
va 



ences on board the Vaterland in Hoboken, where 
they were sure of no eavesdroppers, developed 
details of their war on America and the campaign 
of violence on land and on sea to stop the carry- 
ing of munitions of war to England, France and 
Russia. Von Papen superintended the cam- 
paigns on land and projected his work upon the 
seas. The moment, however, the schemes, as 
papers found in von Igel's possession prove, had 
anything to do with the sea, he consulted Boy-Ed. 

SHOVING UNCLE SAM IN THE MEXICAN MUDDLE 

One of the causes for the summary dismissal 
of both Boy-Ed and his confrere, von Papen, 
from America, was their schemes to involve this 
nation in a conflict with Mexico, to bring about 
American intervention in that country and thus 
provide a different use than against Germany for 
America's supply of explosives and rifles. Boy- 
Ed, prior to the war, had opposed the suggestion 
of intervention, but he changed his mind when he 
began to appreciate the fact that America in arms 
would take the powder, high explosives and rifles 
that Europe was buying. He always was a warm 
supporter of General Huerta for, when von 
Papen was in Mexico, getting acquainted with 
Huerta, Boy-Ed, addressing his colleague there, 
wrote: "I was especially pleased by what you 
wrote about Huerta, the only strong man in 
Mexico. In my opinion, Admiral von Hintze 
was not quite right in his estimate of him. For 

123 



Huerta can scarcely be such a drunken ruffian 
as Hintze often implies, if only because a chronic 
drunkard could hardly have kept so uncertain a 
position under such uncommonly difficult circum- 
stances. I met a number of people in Mexico 
City who were in close touch with Huerta, and 
without exception they all spoke very highly of 
the President's patriotism, capacity and energy." 

PLANNING WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES 

Of Boy-Ed's schemes to do his share in pre- 
paring, from a naval standpoint, for war between 
Germany and the United States, of the plots 
to create disorganization in the American sea- 
ports and to render the German merchantmen 
useless to Americans, much evidence has been 
gathered by Federal investigators. Of his 
methods in getting information secretly from the 
Navy Department and from battleships, of his 
placing spies, ready for any deed of daring, on 
the warships, a greater amount of information has 
been learned than ever will be made public by the 
Government. Suffice it to say, precautions al- 
ready have been taken against those schemes. All 
these formed the basis for the decision to hand 
Boy-Ed his passport. Summing up Boy-Ed's 
work for the Kaiser in America, accordingly, you 
have his supervision of the shipment of supplies 
to the German raiders, his activities in fraudulent 
passports, his cooperation with Dr. Dumba, 
When President Wilson requested the Kaiser to 

124 



recall his military and naval representatives, he 
caused the announcement that his action was due 
to "their improper activities in military and naval 
affairs," a double-barrelled assertion applying to 
both men. 

Captain Boy-Ed, on his return home received 
from the Kaiser the decoration of the Order of 
the Red Eagle, third class, with sword, in "re- 
cognition of his services in the United States." 
He would undoubtedly, for "those services," ex- 
cept for the immunity granted him as a member 
of a diplomat's official family, be facing prison 
in the United States with Dr. Karl Buenz and 
other officials of the Kaiser's own steamship line. 



125 



CHAPTER VI 

CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, 
GERMAN ARCH-PLOTTER 

WHEN the German spy system was work- 
ing smoothly and giving gleeful satis- 
faction to its builders, the War Staff 
in Berlin sent to America a masterly schemer who 
threw sand into the machinery. He was Franz 
von Rintelen, a finished product of the Prussian 
war-mould. He had been born with a supreme 
confidence in the conquering destiny of Germany. 
He had been trained for his work in that order 
of things and he had subordinated to the needs 
of the Empire, his business, wealth, brains, en- 
ergy — yes, his very soul. He had been ordered 
here to undertake, with the aid of Germany's 
agents, the enormous task of isolating commercial 
and financial America, as a base of war supplies, 
from Europe. In trying to accomplish his aim 
he sought to wreck American institutions and to 
use the United States as a battlefield in a rear 
attack on the Allies. 

Highly imaginative, keen of foresight, a master 
of detail, a superb organizer, and conscienceless 
in the execution of his plans, he seemed like a 
man so perfectly trained for the emergencies of 



war that under no circumstances would he lose 
his poise. And yet when put face to face with 
his own mis judgments and forced to take meas- 
ures to retrieve himself, he lost the very quality 
which his training was meant to insure — a care- 
fully calculating eye and a cool head. His stra- 
tegic moves consequently proved to be ridiculous 
errors that led to his own confusion. 

In a brief sojourn in America he moved in the 
shadows of mystery, employing the vast network 
of German spies, hiring Americans, using thugs 
and setting in motion manifold plans for gigantic 
enterprises that involved the entire governmental, 
industrial and financial organizations of the coun- 
try. When he went away, his work unfinished 
and his aims unaccomplished, a large amount of 
money wasted, there remained a multitude of 
trails, isolated facts and incidents suggesting his 
activities. Seizing these clues, Federal agents 
under A. Bruce Bielaski and William M. Offley, 
began to dig up von Rintelen's associates, to get 
their stories and to obtain proof of the nobleman's 
doings — his letters and telegrams, his agents' 
speeches and the instructions which they tried to 
carry out. Taking these facts, Raymond H. Sar- 
faty, then Assistant United States Attorney in 
New York, working with patience and skill, fitted 
the details together into a series of great mosaics 
— depicting conspiracy, fraud, purchases of 
strikes, bribery, perjury, forgery, sedition, almost 
treason, Those pictures show how hidden forces 

127 



— Americans and Germans working in secret — 
during von Rintelen's presence in this country, 
plotted to cause commotions in political, industrial 
and financial spheres, and all to aid Germany in 
derogation of our rights. 

PICTURES OF VON RINTELEN 

In every one of them, von Rintelen looms as 
the audacious plotter, man of mystery, user of 
a hundred aliases, supreme egotist, a vaunted aid 
to the Kaiser and a Teutonic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 
Hyde. In one picture, you see him in exclusive 
homes on Fifth avenue, a "mould of form" — 
scarcely thirty-eight years old, slim and upstand- 
ing, with stalwart shoulders, the bearing of an 
aristocrat, short stubborn hair, a moustache with 
a like independent twist, and greenish-grey eyes 
that sparkled defiance. He garbed himself in the 
cut of London's most artistic tailors and selected 
the colors of his ties, his shirts and his socks with 
a view to perfect harmony. He was the "glass 
of fashion" on the tip-toe of courtesy, beguiling 
with his gallant quips and charming his hearers 
by his fascinating stories and comments. 

Other pictures show him under an assumed 
name, in conference with conspirators. He might 
meet them secretly in offices, or in hotels, or he 
might pick them up in an automobile, whizzing 
along at full speed and handing gold to hirelings 
who for a price were ready to undertake some 
criminal job. He might be seen, dining j n one 

128 



of Broadway's most alluring cabarets, ordering 
the rarest of wines and boasting of his schemes to 
accomplish in America what would be equivalent 
to Germany's capture of Paris. 

YON RINTELEN'S VALUE 

And who is this man? He is so important that 
when made a prisoner in England, the Kaiser 
offered to exchange for the nobleman any ten 
British prisoners that King George might select. 
He is so esteemed in Germany that large amounts 
of gold were placed at the disposal of Americans 
to go to England and by hook or creek effect his 
escape. Rumor has sought to make him a relative 
of the Hohenzollerns. Another report has put 
him down actually as the Duke of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin. But persons, who knew him well in 
Berlin, saw him in the United States and at the 
prison camp in England, say he is von Bintelen. 
He is said to be the son of a former member of 
the Kaiser's Cabinet ; but the German "Wer Ist's" 
does not credit that man with a son. Still, von 
Rintelen married into one of the wealthiest famil- 
ies in Berlin, his wife being a member of the von 
Kaufmann family, and he had a commanding 
social position in Germany. 

He is wealthy in his own name, his fortune 
being estimated at $15,000,000. He is a director 
of the Deutsche Bank and the National Bank fur 
Deutschland. He is, or was, a member of the 
big financial group of Germany and as such was 

119 



one of the Emperor's financial advisers. His 
knowledge and advisory sphere included Eng- 
land, the United States and Mexico; and of the 
financial and industrial resources of these coun- 
tries he was supposed to have a broad and com- 
prehensive knowledge. He had influence also 
because he was a friend of the Kaiser and a close 
associate of the Crown Prince. 

A SECRET AGENT'S TRAINING 

Von Rintelen's work was cut out for him in 
his early youth. His qualifications were consid- 
ered and he was assigned to studies in preparation 
for the tasks he gave promise of performing most 
efficiently. At the gymnasium and the university, 
he divided his time between economics and fi- 
nance. In addition, he spent considerable time in 
the navy, finally became a Captain-Lieutenant, 
and as such qualified for the General Navy Staff. 
He, too, was one of von Tirpitz's young men 
chosen for definite lines of naval secret service and 
financial campaigns that would be of value to the 
further development of the navy. 

Finance may have been a mere cloak for the 
real nature of von Rintelen's naval assignments 
abroad, or his secret service training may have 
been a necessary part of his training for a high 
place in the Teutonic financial world. Graduat- 
ing from the university and finishing the pre- 
scribed part of his tutelage under von Tirpitz, 
he went to London where he obtained employment 

180 



in a banking house. While there, he was learning 
not only finance but he was a part of that branch 
of Germany's spy system that radiated through 
banking institutions to the various concerns allied 
therewith. Under the guidance of wise heads in 
Berlin, he grasped far more facts about banking 
conditions than ever were suspected by his Eng- 
lish associates. 

Next he came to America. He entered the 
banking house of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co., 
spending a short time there and then moving to 
other banking institutions, some of which were 
branches of English and Canadian banks. He 
obtained letters of introduction from big bankers 
to bankers scattered throughout the United 
States. He grew in knowledge, learned Ameri- 
can banking methods, the connections of banks 
with big industries, and sought to make affilia- 
tions of benefit to German institutions. He served, 
meantime, as Germany's naval representative at 
the exercises in commemoration of John Paul 
Jones. His entrance into New York's society 
was paved for him through the German Em- 
bassy's friends. He was a guest at social func- 
tions where only the most favored were invited. 
He was accepted as a member of the New York 
Yacht Club. He was entertained at Newport. 
He made friends among the biggest men in New 
York ; for he was attractive, a remarkable cosmop- 
olite, extremely learned, versed in international 
questions, speaking English, French and Spanish 

131 



fluently, and above all he was an inimitable racon- 
teur. He showed himself at all times an ardent 
pro- German, arguing for a union of Germany 
and the United States in the event of war. 

Through his wide acquaintanceship and in- 
numerable avenues open to him, he gained in- 
formation about America such as only the most 
favored businessmen in America possess. He 
left this country finally, saying he would go to 
Mexico to investigate conditions there, hoping 
that eventually he might be able to open Mexican 
and South American branches of a German bank. 
But before going, he had acquired insight not 
only into American banking connections with 
Canada but also with Mexico. He knew the big 
financial groups interested in the development 
of the natural resources of those countries and 
he knew thoroughly America's actual and indus- 
trial preparedness for war. 

BACK TO GERMANY 

So, returning to Berlin in 1909, he again took 
up his banking business and continued his close 
affiliation with von Tirpitz and the Big Navy 
crowd, setting forth the facts he obtained and 
making recommendations for the development of 
Germany's secret service in America. He became 
more prominent socially than ever, making it a 
point to entertain Americans. When his Ameri- 
can acquaintances turned up in Berlin, they in- 
variably found von Kintelen a most cordial and 

133 



extravagant host. He obtained introductions at 
court for some; and he introduced others to the 
Crown Prince. When the war started, Americans 
who besought von Bintelen for help in the ex- 
citing days, found him most obliging. 

But before circumstances that brought von 
Bintelen to this country arose, he received sev- 
eral Americans. One was a wealthy American 
manufacturer who owns a large factory in France. 
Being on intimate terms with von Bintelen, he 
called upon him and explained how the plant 
had been closed down with the invasion of the 
Germans, causing a big financial loss. He ap- 
pealed for von Bintelen's intercession to have the 
concern continue business. He got von Bintelen's 
promise of aid but returned to the United States 
before any definite action was taken as von Bin- 
telen was too crafty to make any move before he 
was ready to ask his compensation. 

Von Bintelen was ordered, in January, 1915, 
by the General War Staff to come to America. 
It had become necessary to send a man here to 
buy supplies of copper, rubber and cotton and to 
take extensive precautionary measures against 
the Allies getting war munitions from America. 
He was scornful of American facilities for filling 
Allies' orders and backed by the authority of the 
War Staff and a group of Berlin's ablest bankers, 
he made arrangements for his trip. Knowing 
he must elude the English, he obtained the Swiss 
passport of his sister Emily V. Gasche, who was 

138 



with her husband in Switzerland. He erased the 
"y" of Emily and had the passport altered in 
other ways to suit his needs, travelling as Emil 
V. Gasche, a Swiss citizen. As he bade good- 
bye to his wife and two little daughters, he 
talked arrogantly of a quick trip to America 
past English spies, promised big accomplish- 
ments for the Emperor and an early return 
home. 

Von Rintelen, confident and daring, is said to 
have gone first to England. After gathering 
facts about the manufacture and importation of 
munitions of war and England's method of in- 
creasing the supply, he disappeared suddenly and 
is believed to have gone to Norway. When he 
was on the high seas due to arrive in New York 
on April 3 he sent a wireless message to the 
American owner of the factory in France, ask- 
ing an interview at the pier. Von Rintelen, act- 
ing at what was the time best suitable to himself, 
had succeeded in having the American's factory 
opened. He wished, on landing, to give him this 
information and in return get help in the plans 
that he wished to put into effect. As the Ameri- 
can did not go to the pier, the nobleman, always 
alert and suspicious, hired a detective who spent 
a week investigating. He finally met this man, 
told him in part the purpose of his trip to 
America, and used him as a means of getting in- 
troductions to men who would prove valuable to 
him. 



134 



JEKYLL AND HYDE 

Herr von Rintelen, having dropped the guise 
of E. V. Gasche, immediately began to play Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll, visiting the 
Yacht Club and calling upon wealthy friends, 
proved a more charming, more delightful von 
Rintelen than ever, meeting influential business 
men who were selling supplies to the Allies. He 
was presented to society matrons and debutantes, 
whom, by flattery and subtlety, he sought to use 
to further his purposes. To these, he was Herr 
von Rintelen in America on an important finan- 
cial mission. But occasionally, he made wild 
boasts of plans. As a typical Mr. Hyde he sought 
information from von Bernstorff, von Papen, 
Boy-Ed, about the production of war supplies. 
Astounded by what he learned from them and 
corroborated from other sources, he began to 
realize how utterly he had misjudged America's 
potential resources and what a blunder he had 
made in his statement to the General War Staff. 

Within a brief time von Rintelen realized, with 
a vividness that chilled him, the capacity of 
America to hand war materials to the Allies and 
her rapidly increasing facilities to turn out still 
more ammunition and bullets. The facts which 
he obtained struck him with triple force because 
of the knowledge he had about the war moves. 
It is upon a basis of the supplies of munitions 
in the Allied countries , particularly Russia, as 
von Rintelen knew them, that his acts are best 

135 



judged and upon this basis only can sane motives 
be assigned to the rash projects which he launched. 

He understood these three striking facts thor- 
oughly : ( 1 ) that the German drive on Paris had 
failed because in two months the Germans had 
used up ammunition they confidently expected 
to last a half a year; (2) that the English and 
French in the west could not take up the offen- 
sive because ammunition was not being turned 
out fast enough; and (3) that the Russian drive 
on Germany and Austria would soon fail for lack 
of arms and bullets. 

In the winter and spring of 1915 the Russians 
had made a drive into Galicia and Austria, hurl- 
ing the Austrians and Germans back. In May 
they had advanced victoriously through the first 
range of the Carpathian mountains. Meantime 
the German General Staff, as von Rintelen knew, 
was preparing for a big offensive against the 
Russians. The War Staff knew of Russia's 
limited capacity to produce arms and ammuni- 
tion, knew that during the winter with the port 
of Archangel closed by ice, her only source for 
new supplies lay in the single-track Siberian rail- 
way, bringing material from Japan. He realized 
that by spring the Russian resources would well 
nigh be exhausted and that with the beginning of 
the projected Austro-German offensive the cru- 
cial necessity lay in shutting off supplies from 
Russia. He knew that England and France could 
not help her and therefore, the American source 

136 



must be cut off absolutely. But spring had al- 
ready come, ships were sailing for Archangel 
laden with American explosives, shells, and cart- 
ridges. 

A PLOTTER AT WORK 

Von Rintelen, startled by his mistaken esti- 
mate of American industrial preparedness, and 
frantically determined that Russia's supplies must 
be crippled, that the cargoes going to France and 
England must be held back, began mapping out 
his gigantic enterprises. These conditions were 
the big compelling motive; for the nobleman's 
reputation was at stake. The work for which he 
had been so carefully trained was bound to fail 
unless he acted quickly. Desperate measures were 
necessary. With that situation in view he ex- 
changed many wireless communications with his 
superiors in Berlin — messages that looked like 
harmless expressions between his wife and him- 
self in which the names of Americans who had 
been in Berlin were used both as code words and 
as means to impress upon the American censor 
their genuineness. He obtained as a result still 
greater authority than he had received on the eve 
of his departure from Germany. 

In his quick fashion, he often boasted, and 
there is foundation for part of what he said, that 
he had been sent to America by the General Staff, 
backed by $50,000,000 to $100,000,000; that he 
was an agent plenipotentiary and extraordinary, 

137 



ready to take any measure on land and sea to 
stop the making of munitions, and to halt their 
transportation at the factory or at the seaboard. 

He mapped out a campaign, remarkable for 
detail, scope, recklessness and utter disregard of 
American laws. These plots proved von Rin- 
telen, or the German General Staff, a master of 
thoroughness and ingenuity, for he took into con- 
sideration the psychology, the customs, habits, 
and reported weaknesses of Americans. 

His schemes in brief were ( 1 ) the purchase of 
war materials for Germany as a means of boost- 
ing prices; {2) the fomenting of war between the 
United States and Mexico as a means of com- 
pelling the American Government to seize all 
available war munitions; (3)' a campaign of pub- 
licity and the arousing of public sentiment to 
bring about an embargo on arms shipments; (4) 
strikes in American industries; and (5) a series 
of acts of violence against factories and munition- 
carrying vessels. 

Von Rintelen rapidly mobilized his forces of 
money and men. He went first to the Trans- 
Atlantic Trust Company, where he was known 
by his right name and where he arranged his 
finances. Money was transferred from Berlin 
through the usual German channels — large cor- 
porations with German affiliations — and placed 
to his credit in various banking institutions. He 
deposited large amounts in the Trans-Atlantic 
Trust Company and large amounts, totaling mil- 

188 



lions, in other banks. He next rented an office 
on the eighth floor of the same building that 
housed the trust company and had a telephone 
running to it through the switchboard of the 
banking institution. He registered with the 
county clerk as the E. V. Gibbon Company, 
a purchaser of supplies, signing his name to the 
document as "Francis von Bintelen." 

Using the name of Fred Hansen, he received 
persons in that office. There he summoned to his 
help a part of the German espionage system. He 
did not hesitate to call upon any German for 
assistance, and thousands of willing workers were 
at his disposal. If he wished a naval reservist, 
he knew where to get him; if a member of the 
landsturm was needed for any detail, he was 
called. From Boy-Ed, he received data about 
the sailings of ships ; from von Papen, facts about 
munition factories. He met Koenig and assigned 
numerous tasks to him, particularly the location 
of munition factories, their products and exports. 

His first task, merely incidental in importance 
compared with his other aim, was the succoring 
of the Fatherland and the blocking of the Allies 
through purchases. He participated with in- 
fluential Germans in the scheme of buying the 
leading munition factories. He attempted the 
running of the British blockade. Dr. Albert also 
was buying goods, but von Rintelen, working on 
a much larger scale, commensurate with his fertile 
imagination, and employing a staff of agents, 



took charge of the shipments of raw products and 
food. Carrying on these purchases through E. V. 
Gibbon Company, using the name of Gibbon and 
Hansen, he had as aid Captain Steinberg a Ger- 
man naval officer. Through him, von Rintelen 
chartered ships, purchased materials, caused false 
manifests to be made for the cargoes, and ar- 
ranged for shipment to Italy and the Scandi- 
navian countries, whence they were trans-shipped. 

IN THE MAZE 

This officer, it is charged, had dealings with Dr. 
Walter T. Scheele, the alleged manufacturer of 
fire bombs, and arranged with him to mix lubri- 
cating oil, so urgently needed in Germany, with 
fertilizer, and ship the oil as "commercial fertil- 
izer." The oil was to be extracted by a chemical 
process in Germany. Von Rintelen, through 
Steinberg, importuned Dr. Scheele to ship muni- 
tions as farming implements, giving him $20,000 
for that purpose. Dr. Scheele did bill the ship- 
ment as requested, but he did not lie because he 
shipped farming machinery, taking a fat commis- 
sion. Again von Rintelen was hoodwinked. The 
officer, von Igel and Dr. Scheele have been in- 
dicted on a charge of conspiring to defraud the 
United States by false manifests. 

"The British blockade," von Rintelen used to 
boast with purring pride, "is a myth. I can send 
to Germany all the goods that I wish" 

So skilfully did he plan — he was a master of 

140 



detail and a consummate artist in concealing his 
movements — and so many different aliases did 
he employ, that at first he attracted no attention, 
and after a time his doings were credited to a 
German Red Cross lecturer. Because of the 
German method of switching agents to cause 
confusion to the enemy's spies, it is probable that 
some Red Cross agents did figure in the pur- 
chases. The investigations of the Federal authori- 
ties, however, have laid to von Rintelen the 
schemes carried on from April to June, 1915. 

Von Rintelen boasted that he bought provi- 
sions, amounting to $2,000 ,000 a week, for ship- 
ment to Germany through Denmark. More than 
$25,000,000 was consumed by von Rintelen in 
his blockade — running, many of the boats being 
seized by British warships. 

Von Rintelen also took a flier at the most 
elusive and puzzling diversions of war-brokers, 
namely the purchase of the 350,000 Krag-J or gen- 
sen rifles which the United States Government 
had condemned just prior to the outbreak of the 
war. Around those rifles was centered more 
intrigue and deceitful scheming than was incited 
by almost any other single article connected with 
the war. Even after the Government had an- 
nounced emphatically that they were not for sale, 
and President Wilson had told one banker: "You 
will get those rifles only over my dead body," 
every belligerent tried to get them. 

Von Rintelen heard that by bribing Govern- 

141 



merit officials he could obtain the guns. He was 
stirred; for if an official would accept money for 
one thing, he could be influenced to do other 
things to help Germany. Sending out agents, he 
offered to purchase the rifles. He encountered a 
man who put a price of $17,826,000 on them, part 
of the amount being intended, von Rintelen was 
told, as bribes of several millions of dollars for 
Government officials. 

Things looked bright to von Rintelen. "So 
close am I to the President" said the agent who 
promised to deliver them, "that two days after 
you deposit the money in the bank you can dangle 
his grandchild on your knee" But von Rintelen 
apparently came to realize that he was dealing 
with the secret agent of another government, who 
was laying a trap for him, and he quickly with- 
drew. 

THE LUSITANIA GOES DOWN 

Then the Lusitania was torpedoed. Americans 
who were connected with von Rintelen's schemes 
to ship supplies to Denmark and to buy the 
Krags, became alarmed over the prospect of war 
with Germany. They cut off negotiations with 
him and fearing possible government investiga- 
tions, they began to talk. Part of the activities 
of a mysterious German of the name of Meyer 
and Hansen reached both the Government 
officials and newspapers. A reporter on the New 
York Tribune who got a "tip" of the real facts 

142 



and who hunted for von Rintelen, frightened the 
German agents from the office of the E. V. Gib- 
bon Company. Steinberg skipped back to Ger- 
many disguised as a woman carrying a trunk 
full of reports showing the necessity of concerted 
action to prevent the Allies from getting Amer- 
ican war materials. 

Von Rintelen slipped away to an office in the 
Woolworth Building. On disclosing something 
of his schemes to men there, he was quickly 
ordered out. He moved to the offices, in the 
Liberty Tower, of Andrew M. Meloy, who had 
gone to Germany hoping to interest the German 
authorities in a scheme having the same purpose 
as von Rintelen's. In Meloy's office he posed as 
E. V. Gates — still retaining the initials of E. V. 
G. So effective was von Rintelen's "getaway," 
that he was reported to have gone abroad as a 
secretary. Those newspaper stories again gave 
von Rintelen cause to chuckle over his cleverness 
and his elusiveness, and encouraged him to still 
more reckless projects. He was reporting mean- 
time to Berlin by means of apparently innocuous 
commercial messages sent by wireless, and also 
by cablegrams via England and Holland, 

Von Rintelen, always scheming to prevent 
arms and ammunition from going to the Allies, 
reached into Mexico to use that country as an- 
other angle from which to harass the United 
States. He planned — and this project was a part 
of his vast campaign — to embroil Mexico and 

143 



this country in war, or to cause such a jumble of 
revolutions within the Mexican borders that the 
United States would be compelled to intervene. 
He pictured this country in war with Mexico, 
a mobilization of the regular army and the militia, 
an assembling of the American fleet. That would 
require a large part of the output of the munition 
factories. The horses that were being shipped to 
the Allies, the arms, the clothing for soldiers, the 
shoes and the hundreds of other things which 
American factories were busily turning out, 
would be required for a large American army 
moving south of the Rio Grande. 

STIRRING UP MEXICO 

He seized, therefore, upon President Wilson's 
opposition to General Huerta, and he planned to 
start a revolution in Mexico with the aim of re- 
turning Huerta to power and thus placing the 
United States in a position where it would be 
compelled to go into Mexico and restore order. 
The United States would not be in a position 
then to dictate terms for the settlement of the 
Lusitania controversy, would seize the war sup- 
plies going to the Allies, and, incidentally, would 
be hampered for the remainder of the European 
war. 

Ensconced in Meloy's office, von Bintelen had 
as his daily associate a man of his own age and 
of much the same appearance, tall, slender, 
splendidly dressed, namely, a Mexican of Ger- 

144 



man ancestry and a banker of Parral. These two 
had known each other for years, and the two met 
in New York. The banker was versed in Mex- 
ican affairs, and the young German-Mexican 
knew some of von Rintelen's plans which had 
been set in operation before the latter's arrival 
in America. 

German agents had been sent to Barcelona, 
Spain, to confer with General Victoriano Huerta, 
former dictator of Mexico, and dazzle him with 
the prospect of returning to power. VonRintelen 
appreciated keenly the fact that Huerta in 
Mexico virtually meant a declaration of war by 
the United States, and, therefore, he wanted to 
put him there. 

Having coaxed the old warrior to the United 
States, the agile-witted nobleman got Boy-Ed 
and von Papen to map out Huerta's plans. The 
two attaches, with vonRintelen standing, invisible, 
far in the background and pulling the strings, 
had many secret conferences in New York hotels, 
overheard by Federal agents. They developed 
the plans for Huerta's dash into Mexico, and the 
uprising of Mexicans to support him. Von 
Rintelen, Boy-Ed and von Papen made trips 
along the Mexican border, arranged for the 
mobilization of Mexicans, for the storing of sup- 
plies and ammunition and for furnishing funds. 
Von Rintelen deposited in Cuban banks and in 
banks in Mexico City more than $800,000 for 
Huerta's use, When the aged general, stealing 

143 



away from New York, reached Texas he was 
nipped, while attempting to jump the interna- 
tional horder. 

While the Huertista faction was amply 
financed, it was only one of seven groups, five of 
which were in Mexico, to which von Rintelen 
passed out money. Striving to stir up trouble 
and still more trouble for the United States, he 
poured gold upon gold into Mexico, hoping that 
President Wilson, nervous and harassed, would 
raise a big army for a march. 

Next, as an English banker making a special 
study of Mexican railway securities, he called 
one day upon Villa's representative in New York, 
and discussed the Mexican situation with him, 
and afterwards he sent money to Villa. He gave 
support to Carranza. He financed Zapata, and 
he started two other small revolutions in Mexico. 
He gave $350,000 to one agent who hurriedly 
left the country carrying the cash with him. He 
sent $400,000 traveling through devious channels 
to help one of the revolutionary parties ; but that 
money was recovered by von Rintelen's superiors 
after a most exciting scramble. The reckless 
agent is reported to have expended $10,000,000 
in his Mexican enterprises, and airily he said he 
would spend $50,000,000 if necessary. 



1*6 



CHAPTER VII 

CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, 
GERMAN ARCH-PLOTTER 

BUT von Rintelen had still bigger projects 
afoot. While his precise, swiftly moving 
mind supervised the Mexican conspiracy, 
and carefully watched over shipments of supplies 
to the Fatherland, he was launching a series of 
concerted conspiracies designed to cut of this 
country almost entirely from Europe. His vivid 
imagination had led him to picture a Utopian 
fantasy wherein Americans who believed so ab- 
solutely in universal peace — despite the war rag- 
ing abroad — that the laborers would refuse to 
make munitions of war, the farmers would de- 
cline to sell food to warring nations, and the Gov- 
ernment would take over all the war factories. 
Von Rintelen, accordingly, determined to bring 
such a dream into real life, not for altruistic pur- 
poses, but to help Germany conquer the Allies. 
He had made his plans before he left Germany, 
and he had sent ahead for information concerning 
Americans as his aids, who were skilled in finesse 
and underground work. He wanted men who, 
while men of brains, might be led by lust for gold 
or hatred of England to espouse the criminal 

147 



schemes which he had originated. He sought 
leaders whose logic and oratory could sway the 
rank and file. The man of whom he had heard 
while in Berlin as a likely assistant was David 
Lamar, now serving a term of imprisonment for 
having impersonated a Congressman, whose 
craftiness and ingenious methods in using poli- 
ticians in his stock operations had won him the 
title of "The Wolf of Wall Street." The two 
men were brought together. 

One can see von Rintelen, enthusiastically 
speaking in millions of dollars, as he outlined his 
schemes to Lamar, his equal in grace of manner 
and deceit, and Lamar cloaking his avarice with 
smiles and soft words. Of course, Lamar, his 
dark eyes sparkling at von Rintelen's boast, "I 
have millions to spend," echoed the nobleman's 
sentiments. 

BEFUDDLING THE PACIFISTS 

Von Rintelen s first step, as he outlined it to 
Lamar, was to use the horrors of the European 
War as an appeal for universal peace, and to 
enlist the laboring men and the farmers of Amer- 
ica in raising their united voice against the ex- 
ports of arms and ammunition. And thus a great 
labor peace propaganda was originated by a 
German whose patriotism had driven away his 
scruples, and an American who had gone money- 
mad. The details of the organization were set 
forth, and soon von Rintelen had a staff of work- 

1481 



ers at his command, though they all may not have 
known he was paying their salaries. His agents, 
in secret interviews with labor leaders, were 
soliciting their aid, flashing rolls of gold-tinted 
certificates. The men who guiltily handled the 
money which von Rintelen drew from the bank 
had only one complaint, namely, that the de- 
nominations of the bills were entirely too large. 

Two of von Rintelen s agents following Samuel 
Gompers, president of the National Federation 
of Labor, to Atlantic City one day, offered him 
$500,000 for his services in indorsing the peace 
propaganda and participating in the work. Mr. 
Gompers scorned the offer. Other big labor 
leaders, whose aid was solicited, began immedi- 
ately to warn their associates against the anti- 
American activities of German agents. 

By June, 1915, von Rintelen's schemes were 
moving apace. A big advertising campaign had 
been started in the early spring with von Rin- 
telen's cash. Newspaper propaganda picturing 
the glories of universal peace began to appear. 

By the aid of Lamar, who kept von Rintelen 
in the background, the German soon had many 
persons working and talking in the interest of 
universal peace. It is charged that the services 
of Frank Buchanan, Representative in Congress 
and former labor leader, and of H. Robert Fow- 
ler, ex-Congressman, were obtained. Whether 
they were aware of von Rintelen and his motives 
is a question for a jury to answer, for they have 

149 



been indicted in connection with the alleged 
activities of the Labor's National Peace 
Council. 

Within a short time, thousands of invitations 
were scattering throughout the country to labor 
leaders, small and large, and to heads of farmers' 
granges, to attend the national convention of the 
peace propaganda at the expense of the organiza- 
tion. All railroad fares, hotel expenses and a 
liberal allowance for spending money were 
promised. 

Under the fostering financial auspices of von 
Rintelen, who hovered conveniently near the New 
Willard Hotel, the members of a peace move- 
ment gathered in Washington, expenses paid. 
They adopted resolutions saying they desired "to 
promote peace." The resolutions demanded the 
enactment of laws that would enable the Govern- 
ment to take over as exclusive government busi- 
ness the manufacture of all arms, instruments and 
munitions of war; demanded an immediate em- 
bargo upon shipments of war supplies to the 
belligerents; denounced the maintenance of mili- 
tary and naval forces, and called for a special 
session of Congress to promote "peace universal/' 
The executive board went immediately into execu- 
tive session. 

PAYING THE HIRELINGS 

"How is this movement to be financed?" one 
of the newly elected executive board asked an- 

150 



other. He and one of the vice-presidents waited 
for an answer. They got none, he says, and the 
question was repeated by another. Then one of 
the officers answered: 

"This thing is big enough, so that I do not 
care where the money comes from to finance 
it." 

Another member asked : 

"What, after all, does this council want to do?" 

"We want," was the answer, "to stop the ex- 
portation of munitions to the Allies. Germany 
can manufacture all the munitions she wants." 

Von Rintelen's deposit in the Trans-Atlantic 
Trust Company meantime was growing smaller 
by jumps of $100,000, which was drawn on checks 
payable to cash, placed in another bank, quickly 
withdrawn, and on one occasion the money in 
bills was taken to the headquarters of a peace 
organization in a suit-case. Bank accounts of 
von Rintelens peace propagandists began to 
jump. 

The executive board was busy. One of the 
first moves was a statement filed with Secretary 
of State Lansing alleging that nine ships in 
various American ports were taking on cargoes 
of ammunition in violation of the neutrality laws. 
That charge, undoubtedly prepared with von 
Rintelen's aid upon information gathered by 
German spies, showed an accurate knowledge of 
the merchantmen loading with supplies for the 
Allies. There was, however, no violation of law, 

151 



because the vessels were officered and manned by 
ordinary seamen who had no connection with the 
Allied governments. 

The second step was the preparation of a com- 
plaint charging as a violation of law the issuance 
of Federal Reserve notes by national banks on 
the ground the New York banks had lent money 
to the Allies which was being used in payment for 
war supplies; that some of those banks had re- 
discounted notes with the Federal Reserve Bank. 
Here again was displayed a remarkably detailed 
knowledge of the business of the Federal Reserve 
Banks. This charge also fell flat, 

A third move was against Dudley Field Ma- 
lone, Collector of the Port of New York. Reso- 
lutions were adopted accusing him of exceeding 
his authority in having granted clearance papers 
to the steamship Lusitania when that vessel was 
ladened with munitions, and authorizing an action 
to be started against him. No suit, however, was 
begun. In this connection, it may be mentioned 
that one member of the peace committee was at- 
torney for a woman of Chicago, who, months 
afterwards, started suit for $40,000 against Col- 
lector Malone and Captain Turner, of the Lust- 
tania, on the ground that the ship illegally carried 
explosives. 

•-> 

CONSPIRACY GROWS BOLDER 

These public acts mentioned above, however, 
are charged by the Federal Government to have 

10 



been merely a cloak, covering a more extensive 
conspiracy financed by von Rintelen. By a series 
of strikes in munition factories, humming with 
the Allies' war orders ; on railroads carrying the 
articles to the seaboard; and on steamships, von 
Rintelen, it is alleged, sought to cut off commerce 
among the United States and the Allied coun- 
tries. Von Rintelen and several others are ac- 
cused in the Federal indictment of doing six 
different acts in a conspiracy in restraint of 
foreign commerce. They are charged with con- 
spiring to use "solicitation, persuasion and ex- 
hortation" to influence the workers to go on strike 
or to quit work, to bribe officers of labor unions 
to get the men to strike, and "by divers other 
means and methods not specifically determined 
upon by the defendants, but to be decided as the 



occasion arose." 



Von Rintelen was busy now jumping from 
town to town, sending orders under one name, 
then another, and paying out mone}^. There took 
place in June and July, 1915, many strikes which, 
the national labor leaders of the respective trades 
said, were absolutely unauthorized by the national 
bodies. The German agent was delighted to read 
in the newspapers of strikes at the Standard Oil 
plant in Bayonne, N. J. ; of strikes at the Rem- 
ington Arms Company in Bridgeport, Conn., 
and in the General Electric Plant in Schenectady, 
N. Y. His agents would approach him gleefully 
with the newspapers containing these accounts, 

118 



and immediately would receive another bundle of 
bills with the exhortation, "That is fine. Go out 
and start some more." 

Another projected strike in connection with 
which Germans were mentioned in correspon- 
dence, but in which von Rintelen is not named, 
is presented here because it fits in the general 
scheme of the German plotting. That is the con- 
spiracy on part of moneyed representatives of 
Germany in May and June, 1915, to start a strike 
simultaneously among the 23,000 'longshoremen 
on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Such a walk- 
out would absolutely have paralyzed American 
shipping, completely stopped the movement of 
explosives to the Allies at a most critical moment, 
A leader of the big 'Longshoremen's Union told 
Chief William J. Flynn, of the United States 
Secret Service, that $1,035,000, or $45 for every 
man, was offered to keep the men out on strike 
for four weeks. After the sinking of the Lusi- 
tania, the man who approached the 'longshore- 
men wrote under the name of "Mike Foley," ask- 
ing if an "S." (strike) was to be called, that be- 
cause of the "L. (Lusitania) affair," his people 
were not going to do anything at present, and be- 
cause the "Big Man" (who preceded von Rin- 
telen) was going away. It will be recalled that 
after the sinking of the Lusitania, Dernburg was 
dismissed from the country because of his com- 
ments concerning the attitude of Germany 
toward submarine warfare. 

154 



CRIMINALS SET TO WORK 

While von Rintelen was reaching out in so 
many directions in his frantic endeavor to build 
a barrier between the United States and the 
Entente Powers, he did not hesitate to resort to 
criminals. Keeping his quick eyes on the prog- 
ress of the peace propaganda, he had schemes 
which, while distinctly separated from that or- 
ganization, were designed to work in harmony 
with the developments in the strike propa- 
ganda. Von Rintelen planned by aid of reservists 
and crooks to take other measures in munition 
factories to stop, delay, injure the production 
of materials destined for the Allies battle 
fronts. 

He sent trained German reservists to get 
employment in factories with orders to collect 
information and do what they could to cause 
trouble. Resorting again to the well-developed 
system of German secret agents in New York, 
under new aliases, he got in touch with organized 
bands of criminals in New York, and, the authori- 
ties say, hired them to start depredations on the 
ships being loaded with supplies for the Allies in 
New York harbor. To von Rintelen or some 
other person associated with him is attributed the 
origin of a plot for widespread attacks by thieves 
on cargoes being lightered from railroad piers to 
merchantmen. These thefts of sugar, automobile 
tires and magnetos have amounted to millions of 
dollars. For instance, one of the sugar thieves 

155 



stealing bags of sugar from a lighter said to a 
comrade: 

"Take some more bags. The ship won't ever 
reach the other side anyway, and nobody will 
know." 

To the persons who doubt these varied, reck- 
less and extensive activities of von Rintelen, it 
may be suggested that von Rintelen asserted fre- 
quently to his associates that he had come to 
America to take every step, including peaceful or 
violent measures, to stop the shipment of muni- 
tions. 

The doubter must not overlook the supervision 
which von Rintelen exercised over the manu- 
facturer of fire bombs which German reservists 
are accused of hiding on the Allies' merchantmen, 
and the fact that von Rintelen's aid visited a 
bomb man in his Hoboken laboratory frequently; 
that on one occasion he scored him roughly be- 
cause the fire bombs were not proving effective. 
Furthermore, Fay, after his arrest, and long 
before the indictment of the bomb plotters, told 
Captain Tunney of a wealthy German, then a 
prisoner of war in England, who had paid $10,000 
to a Hoboken chemist to make fire bombs. 

Though von Rintelen, during the months of 
June and July, was exuberant over the reports 
— most of them false — which were carried to him 
concerning the progress of peace, the strikes and 
other schemes, and though he was kept drawing 
money from the bank until the $800,000 in the 

156 



Trans- Atlantic Trust Company was reduced to 
$40,000, he began to have doubts about Lamar 
and about the effectiveness of the latter's manage- 
ment of some of the projects. He knew that 
Lamar and his associates were planning for a 
second rousing meeting in Washington, but, be- 
coming suspicious, he suddenly cut off the money. 
He had received estimates of activities that re- 
quired more money. After deliberation he finally 
decided to slip away to Berlin, get away from 
Lamar entirely and after making a report to the 
War Office return to America to broaden his 
scope of work. 

All told, von Rintelen had failed to perceive 
any falling off in the exports to the Allies. They 
were in fact rapidly increasing and von Rintelen's 
schemes thus far had proved ineffective, though 
he still was optimistic that eventually he would 
have all his forces working in unison and thus 
accomplish his aims. 

He did not go to Washington when a second 
peace convention was in session, and the word 
had slipped out to some of the workers that von 
Rintelen was about to sail. Still the meeting with 
the members claiming a representation of 8,000,- 
000 voters, was more denunciatory, enthusiastic 
over its aims, than ever. There were attacks on 
President Wilson and demands for an embargo 
on war munitions. There was an intense pro- 
German feeling. 

Differences, meantime, began to arise among 

1ST 



the members of the executive board. One of the 
vice-presidents resigned just before the second 
session convened, saying emphatically that the 
financing of the organization was under suspicion. 
Another quietly quit, not making the fact public 
until weeks afterward. Lamar flitted away to a 
magnificent country home which he had bought 
in Pittsfield, Mass. There was no money left. 
The propaganda died. 

EXIT VON RINTELEN 

Von Rintelen was on the high seas. He had 
left $40,000 in the bank in charge of his friends, 
and some of the plotters tried to get that on the 
strength of a promise to stop the Anglo-French 
bond sale of $500,000,000. Before sailing he 
had applied for a passport as an American citizen 
named Edward V. Gates of Millersville, Penn- 
sylvania. But whisperings concerning von Rin- 
telen's activities had reached the White House 
from society folk who had heard von Rintelen's 
rash talk and who knew of some of the unscrupu- 
lous things he had attempted. The State De- 
partment ordered an investigation and finally 
sent his passport on to New York the day before 
the sailing of the Noordam, in care of Federal 
agents; but von Rintelen did not claim it. 
Though he had bought a ticket on the boat under 
the name of Gates, and had obtained drafts pay- 
able on that name, he did not occupy the Gates 
cabin but at the last minute engaged passage un- 

158 



der the name of Emil V. Gasche, a Swiss citizen. 
On board 'ship, he set to work preparing for 
the close scrutiny of British naval officers when 
the ship neared Falmouth. He handed over many 
of his documents to Andrew D. Meloy, his travel- 
ling companion and Meloy's secretary. He dic- 
tated a long document about financial conditions 
of Mexican railways purporting to be the report 
of himself as commissioner for a group of Eng- 
lish bondholders. He sought to make it appear 
that he had been sent to the United States as 
a representative of the bondholders' committee 
of Mexican railways. When the British officers 
came on board and searched him, von Rintelen 
put up a skillful bluff but finally surrendered as a 
prisoner of war. Meloy, who had aided von Rin- 
telen in his application for the American pass- 
port, was sent back to this country by the British 
authorities. 

A VALUABLE PRISONER 

While von Rintelen, after his strenuous days 
in America, was resting comfortably in a lux- 
urious prison camp at Donington Hall, England, 
the American authorities were busily delving 
into his record. Mr. Sarfaty presented wit- 
ness after witness and thousands of documents to 
the Federal Grand Jury. Von Rintelen and 
Meloy were indicted, first, for the fraudulent 
passport conspiracy; and Meloy finally made a 
confession to the Government authorities. Von 

159 



Rintelen's agent, called before the Grand Jury 
and refusing to answer, was adjudged in con- 
tempt of court and spent a night in the Tombs 
prison. Another agent, summoned before the 
Grand Jury and asked about his dealings with 
von Rintelen, refused to answer on the ground 
that it might tend to degrade and incriminate 
him, but he afterward was arrested on a fire- 
bomb charge. 

Von Rintelen was indicted on the charge of 
forgery on the passport application, and upon 
that as a basis, application was made to the Eng- 
lish authorities for his extradition. After months 
of investigation, indictments finally were filed 
against von Rintelen, Lamar, and his associates 
on a charge of conspiring to restrain foreign 
trade. 

The moment a United States District- Attor- 
ney, equipped with a mass of documentary evi- 
dence, telegrams, letters, minutes of secret meet- 
ings, and the statements of hundreds of witnesses, 
laid facts before the Grand Jury who brought 
an indictment against a Congressman, the House 
of Representatives, without waiting for the trial 
of the defendant, immediately ordered an inquiry 
which in substance amounted to a fishing expedi- 
tion by the sub-committee to ascertain just what 
evidence Mr. Marshall and Mr. Sarfaty had dug 
up against one of their members. Congress did 
not take any action and finally, after a spectacular 
play decided to let the matter drop, 

im 



A COSTLY FAILURE 

From the viewpoint of picturesqueness, fan- 
tastic conceptions, recklessness, extravagance, and 
a remarkable mastery of detail, von Rintelen 
stands forth as the most extraordinary German 
agent sent to America. Boy-Ed and von Papen 
are now telling their friends in Berlin that their 
recall was due not to what they did but to what 
von Rintelen did and said. 

The energetic nobleman had hoped to cause an 
absolute cessation of exports from this country 
to the Allies and to create a political situation 
where the United States would be powerless to 
make any protest on Germany's submarine war- 
fare. To bring these conditions about he had not 
hesitated to try to foment war between the United 
States and Mexico, to violate various American 
neutrality laws, to attack American institutions 
and American ideals with the aim of causing an 
industrial stagnation. Yet how little he actually 
accomplished ! 

His Mexican plans were a failure. His schemes 
to influence legislation came to naught. While 
a few strikes were started and quickly settled, the 
activity of the Germans proved hurtful to the 
workingmen. Von Rintelen did get a few sup- 
plies over to Germany; but many of his ships 
were seized by the English. His enterprises are 
said to have cost many millions of dollars and the 
supplies which he shipped are about the only thing 
that Germany got out of his gigantic schemes. 

161 



U. S. Attorney Marshall has a passport issued to 
Edward V. Gates which von Rintelen can have 
any time he wishes to come and get it. Should 
he ever step upon American shores, he will face 
charges which upon conviction furnish a total 
sentence of anywhere from fifty to sixty years. 
Never did Germany aim through one man to 
accomplish so much yet effect so little as through 
Franz von Rintelen, the Crown Prince's friend. 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE STORY OF THE LUSITANIA 

THE Lusitania was, in the eyes of the Ger- 
man Admiralty, the symbol of Great Bri- 
tain's supremacy on the seas. The big, 
graceful vessel, unsurpassed in speed, had defied 
the German raiders that lurked in the Atlantic 
hoping to capture her and had eluded the sub- 
marines that tried to find her course. Time and 
time again, the Germans had planned and plotted 
to "get" the Lusitania and every time the ocean 
greyhound had slipped away from them — every 
time save when the plot was developed on Ameri- 
can territory. 

To sink the Lusitania, the German admiralty 
had argued, was to lower England's prestige and 
to hoist the black eagle of the Hohenzollerns above 
the Union Jack. Her destruction, they fondly 
hoped, would strike terror to the hearts of the 
British; for it would prove the inability of the 
English navy to protect her merchantmen. It 
would prove to the world that von Tirpitz was 
on a fair way of carrying out his threat to isolate 
the British Isles and starve the British people into 
submission to Germany. It would be a last warn- 
ing to neutrals to keep off the Allies' merchant- 

163 



men and would help stop the shipment of arms 
and ammunition to the Allies from America. It 
would — as a certain royal personage boasted — 
shake the world's foundations. 

Gloating over their project and forgetting the 
rights of neutrals, the mad war lords did not 
think of the innocent persons on board, the men, 
the women and babies. The lives of these neutrals 
were as nothing compared with the shouts of 
triumph that would resound through Germany at 
the announcement of the torpedoing of the big 
British ship, symbol of sea power. The attitude 
was truly expressed by Captain von Papen who 
on receiving news of the sinking of the Lusitania 
remarked: "Well, your General Sherman said 
it: 'War is Hell.'" 

So the war lords schemed and the plots which 
resulted in the sinking of the Lusitania on May 
7, 1915, bringing death to 113 American citizens, 
were developed and executed in America, through 
orders from Berlin. 

The agents in America put their heads to- 
gether in a room in the German Club, New York, 
or in a high-powered limousine tearing through 
the dark. These men, who had worked out the 
plot, on the night of the successful execution had 
assembled in a club and in high glee touched their 
glasses and shouted their devotion to the Kaiser. 
One boasted afterward that he received an Iron 
Cross for his share in the work. 

On the night of the tragedy, one of the con- 

164 



spirators remarked to a tamily where he was din- 
ing — a family whose son was on the Lusitania 
— when word came of the many deaths on 
the ship: "I did not think she would sink so 
quickly. I had two good men on board." 

WARRIORS AT WORK IN AMERICA 

In their secret conferences the conspirators 
worked their way round obstacles and set their 
scheme in operation. Hired spies had made 
numerous trips on the Lusitania and had carefully 
studied her course to and from England, and her 
convoy through the dangerous zone where sub- 
marines might be lurking. These spies had ob- 
served the precautions taken against a submarine 
attack. They knew the fearful speed by which 
the big ship had eluded pursurers in February. 
They also had considered the feasibility of send- 
ing a wireless message to a friend in England — 
a message apparently of greeting that might be 
picked up by the wireless on a German submarine 
and give its commander a hint as to the ship's 
course. In fact, they did attempt this plan. Spies 
were on board early in the year when the Lusi- 
tania ran dangerously near a submarine, dodged 
a torpedo and then quickly eclipsed her German 
pursuer. 

Spies also had brought reports concerning per- 
sons connected with the Lusitania and had given 
suggestions as to how to place men on board in 
spite of the scrutiny of British agents. All these 

161 



reports were considered carefully and the con- 
clusion was that no submarine was fast enough 
to chase and get the Lusitania; that it was prac- 
tically impossible to have the U-boats stationed 
along every half mile of the British coast, but 
that the simplest problem was to send the Lusi- 
tania on a course where the U-boats would be 
in waiting and could torpedo her. The scheme 
was, in substance, as follows : 

"Captain Turner, approaching the English 
coast, sends a wireless to the British Admiralty 
asking for instructions as to his course and con- 
voy. He gets a reply in code telling him in what 
direction to steer and where his convoy will meet 
him. First, we must get a copy of the Admiralty 
Code and we must prepare a message in cipher 
giving directions as to his course. This mes- 
sage will go to him by wireless as though 
from the Admiralty. We must make arrange- 
ments to see that the genuine message from 
the British Admiralty never reaches Captain 
Turner." 

That was the plan which the conspirators, aided 
and directed by Berlin, chose. Upon it the 
shrewdest minds in the German secret service 
were set to work. As for the British Admiralty 
Code, the Germans had that at the outbreak of 
the war and were using it at advantageous mo- 
ments. How they got it, has not been made 
known; but they got it and they used it, just as 
the Germans have obtained copies of the codes 

166 



used by the American State Department and have 
had copies of the codes used in our Army and 
Navy. While the codes used by the British of- 
ficials change almost daily, such is not the case 
with merchant vessels on long voyages. 

The next step of the conspirators was to ar- 
range for the substitution of the fake message 
for the genuine one. Germany's spy machine 
has a wonderful faculty for seeking out the weak 
characters holding responsible positions among 
the enemy or for sending agents to get and hold 
positions among their foes. It is now charged 
that a man on the Lusitania was deceived or 
duped. Whether he was a German sympathizer 
sent out by the Fatherland to get the position and 
be ready for the task, or whether he was induced 
for pay to play the part he did — has not been told. 
Neither is his fate known. 

Communication between New York and the 
German capital, ingenious, intricate and superbly 
arranged, was just as easy almost as tele- 
phoning from the Battery to Harlem. Berlin 
was kept informed of every move in New York 
and in fact selected the ill-fated course for the 
Lusitania s last voyage in English waters. Berlin 
picked out the place where the Lusitania was to 
sink. 

Berlin chose the deep, sea graves for more 
than 100 Americans. Berlin assigned two sub- 
marines to a point ten miles south by west off Old 
Head of Kinsale, near the entrance of St. 

1OT 



George's Channel. Berlin chose the commander 
of the U-boats for the most damnable sea-crime 
in history. 

Just here, there is a rumor among U-boat men 
in Europe that the man for the crime was sent 
from Kiel with sealed instructions not to be 
opened till at the spot chosen. With him went 
"a shadow" charged with a death warrant if the 
U-boat commander "balked" at the last mo- 
ment. 

BERLIN GIVES WARNING 

The German officials in Berlin looking ahead 
— and the Kaiser's statement have a wonderful 
faculty of foresight — sought to prearrange a 
palliative for their crime. Their plan, which in 
itself shows clearly how carefully the Ger- 
mans plotted the destruction of the Lusitania, 
was to warn Americans not to sail on the 
vessel. 

While the German Embassy in Washington 
was kept clear of the plot and Ambassador von 
Bernstorff had argued and fought with all his 
strength against the designs of the Berlin auth- 
orities, he, nevertheless, received orders to publish 
an advertisement warning neutrals not to sail on 
the Allies' merchantmen. Acting under instruc- 
tions, this advertisement was inserted in news- 
papers in a column adjoining the Cunard's ad- 
vertisement of the sailing of the Lusi- 
tania: 



NOTICE! 

Travelers intending to embark on 
the Atlantic voyage are reminded that 
a state of war exists between Germany 
and her Allies and Great Britain and her 
Allies; that the zone of war includes the 
waters adjacent to the British Isles ; that, 
in accordance with formal notice given 
by the Imperial German Government, 
vessels flying the flag of Great Britain or 
any of her Allies are liable to destruction 
in these waters and that travelers sailing 
in the war zone on ships of Great Britain 
or her Allies do so at their own risk. 

Imperial German Embassy 

Washington, D. C, April 2 2d, 1915 

Germans in New York, who had knowledge 
that German submarines were lying in wait off 
the Irish coast to "get" the Lusitania sent intima- 
tions to friends before the sailing of the ship. 

The "New York Sun 3 was told of the plot and 
warned Captain Turner by wireless after the ship 
sailed. The German secret service in New York 
also sent warnings to Americans booked on the 
Lusitania. One of the persons to receive such a 
message signed "morte" was Alfred Gwynne 
Vanderbilt. Many other passengers got the same 
warning that the ship was to be topedoed; but 
they all laughed at it. They knew she had outrun 
submarines on a previous voyage and tricked them 
on another voyage. Besides, before the horrors 
of this war, optimistic Americans firmly believed 
the world was a civilized place. It was only after 
the destruction of the Lusitania that many neu- 



tral Americans could credit the atrocity stories of 
Belgium. 

FATEFUL MAY 1, 1915 

So when the Lusitania backed from her pier in 
the North River on the morning of May 1, 1915, 
there was more than the average levity that makes 
the sailing of an ocean liner so absorbing. On 
the pier were anxious friends somewhat per- 
turbed by the mysterious whisperings of impend- 
ing danger. Mingling among them also were 
men who knew what that danger was, and who 
had just delivered final instructions to German 
hirelings on board. On the deck of the great 
vessel, as she swung her nose down-stream toward 
Sandy Hook, was not only the man who had 
promised to see that the false message in code 
reached Captain Turner, but there also were 
those two friends, good and true, of von Rin- 
telen's — men who, in the event that the Lusitania 
should run into the appointed place at night, 
would flash lights from port holes to give a clear 
aim to the captain of the stealthy submarines. 

On board the vessel swinging out past Sandy 
Hook into the ocean lane were a notable group of 
passengers, many of them representative Amer- 
icans of inestimable value to this country. Be- 
sides Mr. Vanderbilt, there was Charles Froh- 
man, a talented theatrical producer, who had fur- 
nished by his artistic shows genuine amusement to 
millions ; Elbert Hubbard, talented and inspiring 

170 



writer; Charles Klein, writer of absorbing plays; 
Justus Miles Forman, novelist, and Lindon W. 
Bates, Jr., whose family had befriended von Rin- 
telen. Merchants, clergymen, lawyers, society 
women, a large list of useful men and women in 
the 1,254 passengers. 

These, added to the crew of 800, made more 
than 2,000 lives under the care of the staunch, 
blue-eyed captain. Of that number, 1,214 were 
being rushed over the waves to doom. And as 
the ship sped eastward, submarines leaving their 
bases at Cuxhaven and Heligoland clipped their 
prows under the waves, and made for Old Head 
of Kinsale on the south coast of Ireland, where 
they were instructed to pause, upon sealed in- 
structions and obey them to the letter. 

Meantime, Berlin, counting almost to the hour 
when the Lusitania would near the British Isles, 
prepared the exact wording for the false instruc- 
tions to Captain Turner. This was sent to New 
York by wireless, where it was put into British 
code. The next step was to have this message 
substituted for the British Admiralty's instruc- 
tions to the Lusitania. The inside details of how 
this substitution was effected — can only be sur- 
mised. This secret is buried with the British 
Admiralty and with the Bureau in Berlin. 

Berlin's deliberations 

For such intricate action Germany had been 
preparing with infinite patience both before and 

171 



after the war began. Prior to the outbreak, rep- 
resentatives of Germany had started the building 
of the wireless plant at Sayville, Long Island, 
by which aerial communication was established 
with Berlin. After the war began, the equipment 
of the station was increased, and instead of 35 
kilowatt transmitters, 100 kilowatt transmitters 
were installed, the machinery for tripling the 
efficiency of the plant having been shipped 
from Germany via Holland to this country. 
Wireless experts, members of the German navy, 
also slipped away from Germany to direct the 
work of handling messages between the two 
countries. 

Everything was in readiness at Sayville, con- 
sequently, to catch the directions that were flashed 
through the air. There was an operator specially 
trained to take the message coded for the decep- 
tion of Captain Turner, and send it crackling 
f atef ully through the air. Everything was ready 
and only the request of the operator on the 
Lusitania for directions south of Ireland was 
needed. All this was in violation not only of our 
neutrality laws,, but also in disregard of Amer- 
ican statutes governing wireless stations. 

Meantime, the vessel had reached the edge of 
the war zone decreed by Germany in violation of 
international law, and Captain Turner sent out 
his call for instructions. Presently the order came. 
It was hurried to Captain Turner's stateroom. 

Captain Turner, carefully decoding the mes- 

172 



sage by means of a cipher book which he had 
guarded so jealously, read orders to proceed to a 
point ten miles south of Old Head of Kinsale, 
and run into St. George's Channel, making the 
bar at Liverpool at midnight. He carefully cal- 
culated the distance and his running time, and 
adjusted his speed accordingly. He felt assured, 
because he relied on the assumption that the 
waters over which he was sailing were being 
thoroughly scoured by English cruisers and swift 
torpedo boats in search of German submarines. 

THE EXPLOSION THAT ROCKED THE WORLD 

The British Admiralty also received his wire- 
less message — just as the Sayville operator had 
snatched it from the air, and despatched an 
answer. The order from the head of the Ad- 
miralty directed the English captain to proceed 
to a point some 70 or 80 miles south of Old Head 
of Kinsale and there meet his convoy, which would 
guard him on the way to port. But Captain Tur- 
ner never got that message, and the British con- 
voy waited in vain for the Lusitania to appear 
on the horizon. 

The Lusitania headed northeast, going far 
away from the vessels that would have protected 
her. Swiftly she slipped through the waves on 
the afternoon of May 7. Unsuspecting, the ship 
moved directly toward certain death. The proud, 
swift liner steered straight between two sub- 
marines, lying in wait. 

173 



The details of what happened after the torpedo 
blew out the side of the great ship have been 
told — told so fully, vividly, so terribly that they 
need not be repeated here. As Captain Turner 
heard the explosion of the torpedo he instantly 
knew that there had been treachery. He knew 
he had been decoyed away from the warships that 
were to escort him to his pier. 

The manner in which the captain had been 
lured to the waiting submarines was made clear 
at the secret session of the Board of Inquiry that 
investigated the sinking of the ship. Captain 
Turner told at the Corner's inquest how he had 
been warned, supposedly by the British Ad- 
miralty, of submarines off the Irish coast, and 
that he had received special instructions as to 
course. Asked if he made application for a con- 
voy, he said: 

"No, I left that to them. It is their business, 
not mine. I simply had to carry out my orders 
to go, and I would do it again." 

At the official inquiry, the captain produced the 
orders which he had received, directing him to 
proceed southwest of Old Head of Kinsale. The 
British Admiralty produced its message which 
had directed Captain Turner to go by an utterly 
different course. It produced also orders which 
had been issued to the convoy to meet the Lus~ 
itania. The orders did not jibe. They showed 
treachery, and further investigation pointed to 
Sayville. 

174 



AMERICA REVOLTED AND APPALLED 

The indignation and the revulsion of Amer- 
icans against Germany because of the destruction 
of the Lusitania with the appalling loss of life 
was a surprise to the Kaiser and his war staff. 
They apparently had believed that the warning 
contained in the official announcement of Ger- 
many, declaring the waters about the British 
Islands a war zone, and the advertisement pub- 
lished would be sufficient excuse, and that their 
act would be accepted calmly by America. They 
were not prepared for Colonel Roosevelt's invec- 
tive stigmatizing the act as piracy or the editorial 
denunciation throughout the country. Their 
effrontery was displayed by one of their agents, 
who announced that American ships also would 
be sunk. But this agent's removal from the 
country and mob violence threatened other agents 
was emphatic proof of America's state of mind. 

Immediately Germany turned as a defense to 
the argument that the Lusitania carried muni- 
tions of war and other contraband in violation of 
the United States Federal statute. But the Amer- 
ican laws were quoted to Ambassador von Bern- 
stoff to prove to him that cartridges could be 
transported in a passenger ship. That argument 
proved of no avail. 

Secretary Bryan's note, written by President 
Wilson, and forwarded to Berlin, demanded a 
disavowal of the sinking of the Lusitania, an 
apology and reparation for the lives lost. But 

171 



Germany sought to parley with a reply that 
would lay the blame on Great Britain, charg- 
ing that the Lusitania had been an armed aux- 
iliary cruiser, requested an investigation of these 
alleged facts, and refused to stop her submarine 
warfare until England changed her trade policy. 
But this note again aroused the wrath of Amer- 
icans. 

LIES AND DECEIT 

German secret agents began to manufacture 
evidence to support the Kaiser's contentions. 
Here a hireling of Boy-Ed looms as an obedient 
servant of the naval attache, whether he knew all 
the facts or not. It was Koenig, who, using the 
alias of Stemler, obtained from Gustave Stahl an 
affidavit to the effect that he had seen four fifteen- 
centimeter guns on the decks of the Lusitania 
before she left port on her ill-fated voyage. There 
were three other supporting affidavits. All these 
documents were handed to Boy-Ed on June 1, 
1915, and the following day were in the hands 
of von Bernstorff, who turned them over to the 
State Department in Washington. 

It required but little work on the part of 
Federal agents to establish the untruth of Stahl's 
affidavit. Stahl, a German reservist, appeared 
before the Federal Grand Jury where he again 
repeated his lies. He was indicted for perjury 
and upon a plea of guilty was sent to the Federal 
prison at Atlanta., 

176 



It was Koenig who had hidden Stahl away 
after the latter had made his affidavit, and it was 
Koenig who, at the command of the Federal 
authorities, produced him. 

So here again Germany's efforts to deceive 
and to palliate her piratical act came to naught, 
and left her even more damned before the 
world. Time came within a few days for Presi- 
dent Wilson to reject forcibly the flimsy de- 
fense made by Germany, but before that note 
was drafted, the United States authorities by a 
thorough investigation of Sayville, and a scrutiny 
of the German naval officers employed there, dis- 
covered that the fake code message that drove the 
Lusitania to her grave in the sea had been flashed 
out from neutral territory; that the conspiracy 
had been developed in America, though the de- 
tails were not obtainable at that time as they are 
presented here. 

President Wilson was determined to demand 
the absolute safety for Americans at sea. Though 
Bryan resigned, Mr. Wilson sent a note, as- 
serting that the Lusitania was not armed, and 
had not carried cargo in violation either of Amer- 
ican or international law. The action of Bryan 
weakened the position of America in demanding 
a cessation of Germany's submarine warfare. It 
gave encouragement to Austria, after Germany 
had promised to obey international law, to try a 
series of similar evasions. It gave impetus to 
Germany's plans to make a settlement of the 

177 



submarine controversy and to try to divide Con- 
gress on the issue. 

The loss to America was 113 lives and a great 
amount of prestige; to Germany, a tremendous 
amount of sympathy. But through it all stand 
out the pictures of secret agents, boasters, schem- 
ers and reckless adventurers, one of whom, hav- 
ing aided in the sinking of the Lusitania and the 
drowning of hundreds of her passengers and 
crew, had still the audacity to dine on the evening 
of this ghastly triumph at the home of an Amer- 
ican victim. One agent high in international 
affairs, overcome by the force of the tragedy done 
in answer to the Kaiser's bidding, had still 
enough decency left to remark : 

"Oh, what foul work!" 



if® 



CHAPTER IX 

DR. HEINRICH F. ALBERT, 
GERMANY'S BAGMAN AND BLOCK- 
ADE RUNNER 



A 



ND tell him that the struggle on the 
American front is sometimes very 
hard."— Dr. Albert. 



To outwit John Bull on the high seas by run- 
ning his blockade is a big task. To compete 
against the combined commercial generals of 
England, Russia, France and Italy in seeking 
trade in the Americas is a still larger undertak- 
ing. But for one man to attempt both, while 
incidentally keeping tab on the industrial growth 
of the United States and being a big factor in 
Germany's spy system, seems like a pygmy grap- 
pling with a Hercules. The qualities requisite 
for the man who would accept such a battle are 
diplomatic finesse of the highest degree, strength 
compared to one of America's kings of industry, 
a vast economic knowledge, the shrewdness of a 
Yankee and the cleverness of the Kaiser's ablest 
strategist. Yet the responsibilities of such a mani- 
fold enterprise, romantic in its infinite details 
and its bigness, were assumed by one German. 

179 



You could find him almost any day until the 
break with Germany in a small office in the Ham- 
burg-American Building, the Kaiser's beehive of 
secret agents, at No. 45 Broadway, New York. 
He was a tall, slender man, wonderfully supple- 
looking in spite of the conventional frock coat and 
the dignified dress of a European business man. 
His clear, blue eyes, his smooth face, thoughtful 
and refined, his blonde hair, and his regular fea- 
tures suggested a man of 38, or even younger, 
though you would look for a middle-aged or 
older man as selected for a position requiring so 
many nice decisions. When you entered his 
room — and few persons gained admission — 
he would rise and bow low and most courteously, 
speak in a soft, melodious voice, was delib- 
erate in the choice of his words and encouraged 
conversation rather than make it. He was the 
quintessence of politeness, and, in fact, in 
marked contrast to the clear-cut, energetic, 
brusque, American business man — a smooth pol- 
ished cog in the steel machinery of Prussian 
militarism. 

Yet this man was the center of Germany's 
business activities in America. Upon him has 
rested the task of spending between $2,000,000 
and $3,000,000 a week for the German Govern- 
ment in the purchase of supplies and in propa- 
ganda. His expenditures in furthering the cause 
has cost him thirty millions of dollars outside 
the vast amounts spent in the purchase of sup- 

180 



plies, and he admits he wasted a half-million or 
more dollars. 

He was Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, privy coun- 
cilor to the German Embassy and fiscal agent in 
America for the German Government. He was 
the source of the funds used by the representa- 
tives of Germany, her secret diplomatic and con- 
sular agents. He was the channel through whom 
money flowed from the Imperial exchequer — 
unwittingly it may have been on his part — to men 
who, in the interest of Germany, have violated 
American laws. 

His job was a big one because this war has 
demanded the help of industry, as no other pre- 
vious war. Just as it has resolved itself into an 
enormous race between the industries of the com- 
bating nations in turning out shells and arms, 
so Geheimrath Albert's duties became all the more 
multitudinous, really a part of the great conflict 
itself. 

Dr. Albert had just as important work as his 
colleagues, the military and naval attaches, but 
in a different field. With industrial prepared- 
ness of greater importance in this than in any 
other war it is natural that the commercial at- 
tache and his staff of agents should prove a most 
important asset to Germany's secret service in 
America. Geheimrath Albert's duties in the 
economic field have been bound inextricably with 
the aims of the Fatherland's secret service. While 
directing and financing the collection of data 

181 



for use in the preparation of reports to the home 
government, he has also worked side by side with 
the other representatives of his Government. 

THE EQUIPMENT OF A COLOSSUS 

Albert was equipped for the gigantic task, as 
few men in the world have been equipped. He 
knew finance, the economy of industry, the finesse 
of diplomacy and the odd, yet scientific twists of 
the inventor's mind. He had been trained in the 
things that interested kings and the problems that 
appealed to the laboring man. His field of knowl- 
edge was broad, for in preparation for his tasks 
he had to seek the best commercial, banking, 
industrial methods and inventions of the world 
to help Germany. So successful was he that 
his friends have termed him "The German 
Yankee." 

Around no German official in America has 
there hovered so much mystery. A great bul- 
wark of Germany's propaganda — though no par- 
ticipator in any illegal or criminal acts — has been 
charged against him, he might have remained 
the greater part of the war under cover had it not 
been for the activity of secret service agents and 
for a little nap which Geheimrath Albert, the 
courteous and overworked, took upon an elevated 
train one day. When he awoke, his dossier was 
gone. That portfolio contained a mass of won- 
derfully illuminating documents, so many and 
so varied that if the privy councilor is accus- 

182 



tomed to take up in one day so many diverse 
matters it almost staggers the imagination to try 
to conceive of the tasks which this war brought 
him. Through them public and official attention 
was fastened upon him, serving to deepen the 
folds of mystery about him. Through them the 
public in America first learned of the vastness of 
German propaganda. Dr. Albert lost his port- 
folio in August, 1915. 

In the quietness of his little office above hum- 
ming Broadway and within calling distance of 
the gold-lined Wall Street into which he so con- 
stantly pried, Geheimrath Albert discussed mo- 
mentous economic problems with Germany's other 
big men. In the German Club in the evenings 
he continued those consulations. In trips to 
Washington and Chicago and New Orleans and 
San Francisco, and he and his agents conferred 
with big German business men. 

His close confidant was Count von Bernstorff, 
with whom he had a joint account of several mil- 
lions of dollars in the Chase National Bank, New 
York. His two active colleagues were Captain 
von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed. The associa- 
tion with these men must have been very close 
and keen; for on von Papen's recall Dr. Albert 
wrote him: "I shall feel your departure most 
keenly; our work together was excellent and was 
always a great pleasure to me. I hope that in 
the Fatherland you will have an opportunity for 
making use of your extraordinary talent in deal- 
in 



ing with economic questions. When I think of 
your and Boy-Ed's departure and that I alone 
remain behind in New York, I could — well, better 
not!" 

Dr. Albert learned the output of the steel in- 
dustries and the financial connections of the big 
corporations. He had accurate information 
about the electrical manufacturing concerns in 
this country, their output, their inventions, the 
ability and the accomplishments of the engineers 
at the head of those plants, their training and 
personal history. He knew all about America's 
transportation systems, their financial strength 
and the real mechanical and constructive ability 
of the scientific men connected with those systems. 
His information was as broad as his American ac- 
tivities. Suffice it to say that it was Dr. Albert's 
business to get these facts — and he did so. 

HIS VIEW OF THE FUTURE 

How Dr. Albert looked to the future is set forth 
in a report which was prepared for him on June 
3, 1915, by a trade representative in the German 
General Consulate, New York, on the effect of 
the British embargo. This document, compiled 
by a scientist, was undoubtedly only one of hun- 
dreds of such instruments worked out by Ger- 
mans in this country for the help of the Father- 
land. In this paper the writer, name(l Waetzoldt, 
says: 

"There can be no doubt that the British Gov- 

184 



ernment will bring into play all power and pres- 
sure possible in order to complete the total block- 
ade of Germany from her foreign markets, and 
that the Government of the United States will 
not make a strenuous effort to maintain its trade 
with Germany. * * * 

"It has been positively demonstrated during 
this time that the falling off of imports caused 
by the war in Europe will in the future be prin- 
cipally covered by American industry. * * * 

"The complete stopping of importation of Ger- 
man products will, in truth, to a limited extent, 
especially in the first part of the blockade, help 
the sale of English or French products, but the 
damage which will be done to us in this way will 
not be great. * * * 

"The Lusitania case did, in fact, give the Eng- 
lish efforts in this direction a new and powerful 
impetus, and at first the vehemence with which 
the anti- German movement began anew awak- 
ened serious misgivings, but this case also will 
have a lasting effect, which, unless fresh complica- 
tions arise, we may be able to turn to the advan- 
tage of the sale of German goods. * * * 

"The war will certainly have this effect, that 
the American business world will devote all its 
energy toward making itself independent of the 
importation of foreign products as far as pos- 
sible. * * * 

"If the decision is again brought home to Ger- 
man industry it should not be forgotten what 
position the United States took with reference to 
Germany in this war. Above all, it should not 
be forgotten that the 'ultimate ratio' of the 
United States is not the war with arms, but a 
complete prohibition of trade with Germany, and, 

185 



in fact, through legislation. That was brought 
out very clearly and sharply in connection with 
the still pending negotiations regarding the 
Lusitania case." 

Dr. Albert received among many reports one 
giving an analysis of the trade here in war ma- 
terials : 

"The large war orders, as the professional 
journals also print, have become the great means 
of saving American business institutions from 
idleness and financial ruin." 

"The fact that institutions of the size and inter- 
national influence of those mentioned could not 
find sufficient regular business to keep them to 
some extent occupied, throws a harsh light upon 
the sad condition in which American business 
would have found itself had it not been for the 
war orders. The ground which induced these 
large interests to accept war orders rests entirely 
upon an economical basis and can be explained 
by the above-mentioned conditions which were 
produced by the lack of regular business. * * * 
These difficulties resulting from the dividing up 
of the contracts are held to have been augmented, 
as stated in business circles, by the fact that 
certain agents working in German interest suc- 
ceeded in further delaying and making worse 
American deliveries. * * * 

"So many contracts for the production of 
picric acid have been placed that they can only 
be filled to a very small part." 

A MAN OF MYSTERY 

Naturally one of the most vital problems that 
stirred Dr. Albert was the British Order in Coun- 

180 



cil in regard to the blockade of Germany from 
which resulted the seizure of meat and food sup- 
plies and cotton by British war vessels. He was 
always on the alert for information as to what 
was the attitude of the Administration and the 
people of the United States toward the blockade. 
That he used secret and perhaps devious means 
to get it is revealed by a confidential report which 
he received under most mysterious circumstances 
concerning an interview by a man referred to as 
"M. P." with President Wilson and Secre- 
tary Lansing. "M. P.," according to the 
conversation, claimed to have received from 
the President "a candid, confidential statement 
in order to make clear not only his own po- 
sition but also necessarily the political op- 
portunity." A striking part of this conver- 
sation follows: 

"L. advises regarding a conference with M. P. 
Thereafter M. P. saw Lansing as well as Wilson. 
He informed both of them that an American 
syndicate had approached him which had strong 
German relations. This syndicate wishes to buy 
up cotton for Germany in great style, thereby to 
relieve the cotton situation, and at the same time 
to provide Germany with cotton. The relations 
of the American syndicate with Germany are 
very strong, so that they might even possibly be 
able to influence the position of Germany in the 
general political question. M. P. therefore asked 
for a candid, confidential statement in order to 
make clear not. only ins own position, but also 

187 



necessarily the political opportunity. The result 
of the conversation was as follows : 

"1. The note of protest to England will go in 
any event whether Germany answers satisfac- 
torily or not. 

"2. Should it be possible to settle satisfac- 
torily the JLusitania case, the President will bind 
himself to carry the protest against England 
through to the uttermost. 

"3. The continuance of the difference with 
Germany over the Lusitania case is 'embarrass- 
ing' for the President in carrying out the protest 
against England. * * * 

"4. A contemplated English proposal to buy 
cotton in great style and invest the proceeds in 
America would not satisfy the President as an 
answer to the protest. * * * 

"5. The President, in order to ascertain from 
Mr. M. P. how strong the German influence of 
this syndicate is, would like to have the trend of 
the German note before the note is officially sent, 
and declares himself ready, before the answer is 
drafted, to discuss it with M. P., and eventually 
to so influence it that there will be an agreement 
for its reception, and also to be ready to influence 
the press through a wink. 

"6. As far as the note itself is concerned, 
which he awaits, so he awaits another expression 
of regret, which was not followed in the last note. 
Regret together with the statement that nobody 
had expected that human lives would be lost and 
that the ship would sink so quickly. 

"The President is said to have openly declared 
that he could hardly hope for a positive statement 
that the submarine warfare would be discon- 
tinued." 

188 



WHAT HIS SECRET CORRESPONDENCE REVEALED 

Dr. Albert also was in close communication 
with the American branches of German indus- 
tries. This fact is apparent from secret corre- 
spondence found in his dossier, showing how after 
much deliberation and consultation a group of 
German representatives in America forbade the 
American branch of a German firm to fill a Rus- 
sian war order. This correspondence shows that 
the American branch first sought information as 
to whether or not it should fill the order either as 
a means of making money or secondly as a means 
of delaying the Russian Government in getting 
the material. One of the Embassy staff wrote 
suggesting that the Ambassador approve of the 
acceptance of the order as a means of hindering 
the Allies. After a conference it was reported : 

"In my opinion it would be hazardous for your 
firm to ship locomotives, cars, or wheels to Russia. 
All these transportation means would lighten the 
transport of troops, ammunition and provisions 
for the Russian Government, and your firm 
would, within the meaning of Paragraph 89 of 
the (German) Penal Code, be rendering aid to 
the enemy thereby. * * * That you are in a 
position to delay the delivery of the order to the 
prejudice of the hostile country ordering them 
will in no measure relieve you from liability." 

GERMANY IN THE STOCK MARKET 

When it appeared that the Kaiser would not 
yield to demands made by the President, the 

189 



prices of stocks went down and Germans bought 
stocks cheaply. After they loaded up a liberal 
supply, word would come that Germany was 
yielding and the stock market would become 
buoyant, thus allowing the German group to sell 
hundreds of thousands of shares on a substantial 
profit. There is absolutely no doubt that as a 
result of every crisis the German Government 
realized millions of dollars in the market. 

An instance of how Dr. Albert had opportunity 
to get into the market is revealed in a secret letter 
written to Dr. Albert on July 8, 1915, by a well- 
known Board of Trade German in Chicago, and 
associated with a group of German traders. In 
this letter he refers to Dr. Albert's "principal," 
presumed to be no other than the German Gov- 
ernment or the Kaiser himself. His letter says : 

"Provisions have been horribly depressed by 
severe liquidation. We firmly believe that pur- 
chase of September lard will make your principal 
a great deal of money. September lard closes to- 
night at $8.65. This, with high freight added, 
will cost under 10 cents delivered Hamburg, 
where actual prices are around 35 cents per 
pound. 

"I do not want to appear overpersistent, but 
there never was a better proposition than buying 
this cheap lard for September delivery." 

One of Dr. Albert's functions was to sift this 
commercial information and make recommenda- 
tions to Berlin. He would confer with his co- 

190 



workers on all military and naval matters having a 
commercial phase. That he did so is proved by the 
reports which they made and which went to Dr. 
Albert for his consideration and further recom- 
mendation. Captain von Papen, on July 7, 1915, 
submitted to Dr. Albert a memorandum headed, 
"Steps Taken to Prevent the Exportation of 
Liquid Chlorine" in which he tells of the efforts 
made by England and France to buy that chemi- 
cal in America, tells of the output here, and the 
firms turning it out. 

THE SHIP PLOTS 

Another matter of importance to which he gave 
thought was the problem which had been in every 
German mind and mouth since the beginning of 
the war, namely the prevention of the shipment 
of war supplies to the Allies. A letter mailed 
to Dr. Albert from Chicago under date of July 
22, 1915, sets forth how zealously his agent was 
working on an embargo conference with the aim 
of arousing sentiment in this country against the 
export of arms and ammunition. The letter says 
that he had obtained the co-operation of a United 
States Senator, a Congressman and other Ameri- 
cans in this project. 

One letter from Albert's agent runs thus : 

"I must refrain from communicating the above 
facts in my report to the Ambassador, as the mat- 
ter could be too easily compromised thereby. 
Perhaps you will find an opportunity to inform 

191 



Count von Bernstorff verbally. As soon as the 
matter has first gained more headway, I believe 
Mr. von Alvensleben, who has taken part in the 
whole development here, will come to New York 
in order to inform the Ambassador fully regard- 
ing prevailing frame of mind here as well as re- 
garding the movement, provided, however, that 
is desired." .. ■■ 

Letters from Detroit suggested a plan for a 
general strike of the automobile workers in that 
city as a mighty protest against shipment of arms 
The strike would cost about $50,000. 

NEWSPAPER PROPAGANDA 

To Dr. Albert also was assigned the task ot 
studying sentiment in this country regarding the 
war and taking steps to influence it in favor of 
Germany — in other words, highly paid press 
work. Through Dr. Albert arrangements also 
were made for many German professors, either 
in Germany or connected with American institu- 
tions, to give up their occupations as teachers and 
devote themselves in America exclusively to lec- 
tures before high-class audiences. In these talks 
the speakers devoted themselves to showing the 
friendly relations between Germany and the 
United States, the similar aims of both countries 
in industry and international affairs, and to argue 
for the cordial support of Germany's cause. 

A complete organization was tabulated of jour- 
nalists throughout the country who were sym- 
pathetic with the German cause. These men re- 

192 



ceived news for publication in various papers, also 
instructions. By the aid of these men a vast 
amount of information was gathered and shunted 
along to Dr. Albert. In addition Dr. Albert gave 
consideration to still more elaborate plans for tht 
purchase of newspapers, the starting of news 
syndicates and information bureaus which, ap- 
parently neutral, should be secretly allied with the 
German cause and supported by German money. 
These facts were shown by a number of papers 
bearing on publicity and methods of acquiring 
it which were found in his dossier. The papers 
show that in one instance he was subsidizing a 
weekly paper and that in return he demanded a 
certain policy. 

The following letter throws some light on the 
subject: 

"I request the proposal of a suitable person 
who can ascertain accurately and prove the 
financial condition of your paper. From the mo- 
ment when we guarantee you a regular advance, 
I must — 

"1. Have a new statement of the condition of 
your paper. 

"2. Practice a control over the financial man- 
agement. 

"In addition to this, we must have an under- 
standing regarding the course in politics which 
you will pursue, which we have not asked here- 
tofore. Perhaps you will be so kind as to talk 
the matter over, on the basis of this letter 
with ." 

193 



Plans for the purchase of an English daily in 
New York which would support the German 
cause were worked over at length by Dr. Albert 
and his assistants. Proof also that Dr. Albert 
and his associates contemplated the creation of 
news bureaus in New York and Berlin which 
would furnish and disseminate throughout the 
United States news favorable to the German 
Government is given in the memorandum pre- 
pared apparently by an expert newspaper man, 
outlining the plan and cost of organization and 
giving certain suggestions. 

Dr. Albert gave consideration to the sugges- 
tion of paying the expenses of American news- 
paper men who would go to Germany and send 
back articles favorable to the German cause. He 
did so under orders from von Bethmann-Holl- 
weg, the German Imperial Chancellor, who 
caused one of his aids to write to the German 
Ambassador a letter suggesting that certain jour- 
nalists be invited to visit Germany. 

EFFORTS TO OUTWIT THE BRITISH BLOCKADE 

Varied and important as were these various 
duties, already mentioned, still the paramount 
task to which Dr. Albert devoted himself was a 
scheme to outwit England's blockade of Ger- 
many. This tall, silent man, working in his little 
office was concerned with the purchase of millions 
and millions of dollars worth of supplies— cargo 
after cargo— for shipment to Germany, direct or 

194. 



through neutral countries. In this campaign he 
used every means of deceiving the enemy that 
were in his power. 

Let it be said that this is meant as no reflection 
on Dr. Albert. In war one nation may establish 
a blockade and the other nation will attempt to 
run it. International lawyers agree that one na- 
tion has a right to establish such a blockade. If 
the ship owner obtains ingress to the port he 
makes big profits by the sale of his goods but if 
he is caught by the other belligerent he loses his 
ship and cargo. It is a gamble. 

It has already been established as a part of in- 
ternational law, through decisions of Lord Stowell 
in England more than a century ago and of the 
United States Supreme Court during the Civil 
War, that if it can be shown that shipments of 
supplies to a neutral country are really de- 
signed for transshipment to a belligerent, then 
the enemy has a right to seize and confiscate those 
goods. 

After the Orders in Council were issued by 
England, Dr. Albert sought first to make the 
embargo unpopular in America. Letters and 
other documents in his dossier show that plans 
were submitted to him for stirring up sentiment 
in this country against what was denounced by 
pro-Germans as arbitrary seizures on the part of 
Great Britain. For instance, Edward D. Adams 
of 71 Broadway, New York, who for many years 
was a representative in that city of the Deutsche 

195 



Bank, sent a letter to Dr. Albert in which he 
makes the following suggestion : 

"The South politically is of very great impor- 
tance to the Democratic Party and to the re- 
election of its representatives at our next Presi- 
dential election. The Cabinet and Congress have 
represented in them Southern men to a consider- 
able number who are keenly alive to the impor- 
tance of keeping the Democratic Administration 
in close touch with the Southern voters, and it 
takes such action from time to time as will secure 
their sympathy and support." 

Likewise plans were worked out for the arous- 
ing of the meat packers in Chicago to protest to 
Washington over the seizure of meat ships bound 
for Germany by way of neutral ports. 

German representatives studying public senti- 
ment in this country also suggested to Dr. Albert 
that indignation against Great Britain could be 
aroused by making it appear as if the British 
blockade was hurting America in preventing the 
receipt here of various non-contraband articles 
from Germany. One associate wrote to Dr. 
Albert: 

"From a German standpoint, the pressure on 
the American Government can be strengthened 
by the interruption of deliveries from Germany 
even if the British Government should permit ex- 
ception. Those shipments especially should be 
interrupted which the American industries so 
badly require ; withholding of goods is the surest 
means of occasioning the placing before the Ad- 
ministration in Washington of American inter- 

196 



ests. Those protests have the most weight which 
come from American industries which employ 
many workmen." 

In the early months of the war Dr. Albert was 
a buyer of enormous supplies of cotton, wheat, 
copper, lubricating oil and other articles needed 
by Germany for the prosecution of the war. He 
signed contracts for meat and other supplies 
amounting to millions of dollars and he made 
payment the moment the ships were loaded here 
so that the American seller got his money regard- 
less of what happened to the cargo while on the 
high seas. Of course, after the German Govern- 
ment seized all food supplies, the British Govern- 
ment took the attitude that all food supplies 
bound for Germany were intended for the Gov- 
ernment and were therefore contraband. In the 
next pl#ce all purchases of food or other material 
by Dr. Albert as the official representative of the 
German Government made them Government 
supplies and therefore contraband of war. The 
moment the British Government discovered that 
these articles were purchased by Albert, no matter 
whether they were bound for neutral countries, 
or not, England argued she was justified in seiz- 
ing the ships and confiscating them. But as a fact, 
England paid the American shippers in most 
instances. 

All the facts in the vast scheme mapped out by 
Dr. Albert for outwitting John Bull's blockade, 
have been developed by the Attorney-General of 

197 



England and set forth in the prize courts there. 
It has been shown that Albert backed the pur- 
chase of cotton by the shipload, that he acquired 
vessels under neutral flags for carrying these 
cargoes to neutral countries. He spent millions 
of dollars in the purchase of meat. For instance, 
Dr. C. T. Dumba, Austro-Hungarian Ambas- 
sador, writing to Baron Burian from New York, 
tells of an interview in Chicago with a beef 
packer. 

"No fewer than thirty-one ships, with meat 
and bacon shipments from his firm to Sweden 
with a value of $19,000,000 have been detained," 
he says, "in British ports for months under sus- 
picion of being ultimately intended for Germany. 
The negotiations have been long drawn out, be- 
cause Mr. Meagher and his companion will not 
accept a lame compromise, but insist on full com- 
pensation or release of the consignments in which 
the bacon may still remain sound." 

A TWO-FACED PROPAGANDIST 

Dr. Albert issued a statement which purports 
to be a complete reply to the charges in regard 
to a secret German propaganda in the United 
States. He said that the purchase of ammuni- 
tion plants in this country was justifiable, argued 
for an embargo on arms and ammunition, charged 
Great Britain with piracy on the high seas, de- 
nied that the German Government financed press 
agents, and asserted that the German Govern- 

198 



ment had not started any undercover newspaper 
campaign in this country. He said it was in- 
evitable that all sorts of wild and irresponsible 
offers, proposals and suggestions should be ad- 
dressed from every conceivable quarter to one 
holding the official position in which he was placed 
as an accredited agent of one of the great nations 
engaged in this unfortunate world-wide war. He 
referred to the strike letters as junk and said that 
he should not be held responsible for every crank 
that wrote him a letter. 

That statement was for the American public. 
Dr. Albert's real sentiments are shown vividly 
in a letter which he wrote to Captain von Papen 
from San Francisco after the announcement of 
the President's decision to send the military at- 
tache out of the country. Here is part of it: 

"Well, then ! How I wish I were in New York 
and could discuss the situation with you and 
B. E.! Many thanks for the telegram. The 
'Patron' also telegraphed that I was to continue 
the journey. So we shall not see each other for 
the present. Shall we at all before you leave ? It 
would be my most anxious wish; but my hope is 
small. For this time, I suppose, matters will 
move more quickly than in Dumba's case. I 
wonder whether our Government will respond in 
a suitable manner! In my opinion, it need no 
longer take public opinion so much into considera- 
tion, in spite of its being artifically and intention- 
ally agitated by the press and the legal proceed- 
ings, so that a somewhat 'stiffer' attitude would 
be desirable, naturally quiet and dignified! 

W9 



"If you should leave New York before my re- 
turn, we must try to come to some agreement 
about pending questions by writing. Please in- 
struct Mr. Amanuensis Igel as precisely as pos- 
sible. You will receive then in Germany the 
long-intended report of the expenses paid through 
my account on your behalf. I would be very 
thankful to you if you would then support the 
question of a monetary advance which you know 
of, although I know that I was mistaken in my 
opinion, that I acted as your representative and 
according to your wishes." 

When all the work of Dr. Albert is summed 
up and taken into consideration with his propa- 
ganda in association with Captain von Papen and 
Captain Boy-Ed, the impression remains that he, 
a guest of the United States, was immersed in 
plans that were aimed at the honor and integrity 
of this republic. 



300 



CHAPTER X 

AMBASSADOR DUMBA, GERMANY'S 
CO-CONSPIRATOR 

U TFI wanted to flatter the American people, 
I would make a statement before my de- 
parture, but I say nothing." 

This was the sentiment of Dr. Constantin 
Theodor Dumba, veteran diplomat and Austro- 
Hungarian Ambassador at Washington, just 
after he had received his passports from Secretary 
of State Lansing. He was dismissed from this 
country in September, 1915, because of his pro- 
Teutonic activities, which were adjudged by the 
State Department to amount to interference with 
the internal affairs of the nation. 

The diplomat, regarded at the time as the 
ablest in Washington, did not relish the notoriety 
of being the ninth diplomat to be expelled from 
America; and, when questioned by reporters on 
the eve of his departure, he revealed the acrid 
feeling regarding Americans which his wonted 
suavity and self-control hitherto had enabled him 
to conceal. The next day, however, he did un- 
bend to the extent of saying something about 
"wonderful United States" — and then sailed 
away. 

201 



Dumba, master of intrigue and remorseless in 
the attempted execution of any scheme that he re- 
garded as beneficial to the welfare of his country, 
had been the supervising authority of the Austro- 
Hungarian espionage system in America, which 
was linked almost chain for chain with the Ger- 
man machinery. The joint activity of the Ger- 
man and the Austrian organizations was aimed 
at the same end as those described in connection 
with the duties of the German agents and their 
executives. He had as his active assistants, Baron 
Erich Zwiedinek von Sudenhorst, counsellor to 
the Austrian Embassy, and after the dismissal of 
Dumba, Charge d' Affaires; Dr. Alexander Nu- 
ber von Pereked, Consul-General in New York, 
and several other Austrian consuls throughout 
the country. He is said to have been the originat- 
ing genius of many of the ideas which the German 
agents tried to put into effect. 

The charges against him are based on a series 
of exposures concerning the secret propaganda 
in which Dr. Dumba participated and concern- 
ing which evidence was gathered by the Secret 
Service and the Department of Justice. They 
rest on secret diplomatic messages which Dr. 
Dumba wrote and entrusted to Captain James F. 
J. Archibald, an American, travelling in August, 
1915, on the steamship Rotterdam for Holland, 
whence he expected to confer with the Foreign 
Offices of both Germany and Austro-Hungary. 
Those documents were captured by the British 

202 



and turned over to the American authorities. 
They expose much the same sort of illicit activity 
as set forth in German documents. 

MORE PASSPORT FRAUDS 

Attorney- General Gregory caused a thorough 
investigation of these documents and also of von 
Nuber's office in New York. Many consular 
employes were taken before the Grand Jury and 
practically every member of the Consulate, ex- 
cepting von Nuber and his immediate associates, 
was rounded up one night in the office of Super- 
intendent Offley in New York. They were ques- 
tioned, and they gave much information. 

Baron Zwiedinek was a busy person at the 
summer Embassy at Manchester-by-the-Sea after 
the outbreak of the war. Hundreds of Austro- 
Hungarian reservists were bobbing up at various 
consulates and registering, eager for directions 
and for means of getting back to their country. 
Evidently, these matters came under his jurisdic- 
tion, for he wrote the following letter to von 
Nuber : 

"Manchester, A. M., 24 August, 1914. 

"To the Imperial and Royal Consulate General 
in New York: 
"On the 21st inst. the Imperial and Royal 
Embassy received the following telegram from 
the Imperial and Royal Consulate in San Fran- 
cisco : 

' 'Nine employes arrived here on the steamer 

203 



Yokohama seek transportation New York at ex- 
pense of State. Beg for telegraphic instruction 
whether Consulate should pay traveling expenses. 
Stay here would cause embarrassment.' 

"The Embassy has instructed the Consular 
office mentioned to send these employes to New 
York. Thereupon the following telegram of the 
22d arrived: 

" 'Attache Hanenschild, Interpreter Nanter- 
natz, Embassy, Tokio, as well as six employes 
journeyed onward.' 

"Since the Imperial and Royal Embassy is of 
the opinion that it is a patriotic duty of the 
reservists to do their utmost to reach the mon- 
archy, will the Imperial and Royal Consulate 
please make all efforts in this connection to dis- 
cover the proper transportation facilities for 
these employes who are shortly to arrive. Per- 
haps it would be possible also to produce suitable 
passports of neutral countries at comparatively 
slight expense. 

"Concerning that which is done in this connec- 
tion please report in due time. 

"For the Imperial and Royal Embassy, 

"Zwiedinek." 

When that letter was shown to Baron Zwie- 
dinek by Secretary of State Lansing, he admitted 
the authenticity of the signature, but denied he 
remembered anything of its contents. He ex- 
plained that it was probably dictated by a clerk, 
and that in his haste he signed it without reading 
it. He also disclaimed any responsibility for it 

204 



on the ground that Dr. Dumba was at the date of 
the letter the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador. 

MUNITION PLOTS 

Part of the schemes considered and recom- 
mended by Ambassador Dumba to prevent the 
exportation of war munitions from the United 
States is set forth in the secret communications 
which he gave to Captain Archibald to carry to 
Baron Burian, Austrian Foreign Minister. The 
first document discusses the diplomatic efforts 
that have been made toward that end, deprecates 
the arguments put forth by the State Depart- 
ment in declining to take any action to forbid 
the export of war munitions. 

"The true ground for the discouraging attitude 
of the President," wrote Dumba, "lies, as his con- 
fidant, Colonel House, already informed me in 
January, and has now repeated, in the fact that 
authoritative circles are convinced that the United 
States in any serious crisis would have to rely on 
foreign neutral countries for all their war ma- 
terial. At no price, and in no case, will President 
Wilson allow this source to dry up. 

"For this reason I am of the opinion that to 
return to the question whether by a reply from 
Your Excellency or by a semi-official conversa- 
tion between myself and the Secretary of State 
would not only be useless, but even, having re- 
gard for the somewhat self-willed temperament 
of the President, would be harmful." 

Dr. Dumba's plans for causing strikes in muni- 

205 



tion factories in the United States are related by 
himself in the following official document which 
he sent to Baron Burian: 

"New York, August 20. 

"Your Excellency: Yesterday evening Consul 
General von Nuber received the enclosed aide 
memoire from the chief editor of the local in- 
fluential paper Szabadsag, after a previous con- 
versation with me in pursuance of his verbal pro- 
posals to arrange for strikes at Bethlehem in 
Schwab's steel and munitions factory and also in 
the Middle West. 

"Archibald, who is well known to your Ex- 
cellency, leaves to-day at 12 o'clock on board the 
Rotterdam for Berlin and Vienna. I take this 
rare and safe opportunity of warmly recommend- 
ing these proposals to your Excellency's favor- 
able consideration. It is my impression that we 
can disorganize and hold up for months, if not 
entirely prevent, the manufacture of munitions 
in Bethlehem and the Middle West, which, in the 
opinion of the German military attache, is of 
great importance and amply outweighs the com- 
paratively small expenditure of money involved. 

"But even if strikes do not come off it is prob- 
able that we should extort under pressure more 
favorable conditions of labor for our poorly 
downtrodden fellow countrymen in Bethlehem. 
These white slaves are now working twelve hours 
a day, seven days a week. All weak persons suc- 
cumb and become consumptive. So far as Ger- 
man workmen are found among the skilled hands 
means of leaving will be provided immediately 
for them. Besides this, a private German regis- 
try office has been established which provides em- 

206 



ployment for persons who voluntarily have given 
up their places. It already is working well. We 
shall also join in and the widest support is as- 
surred us. 

"I beg your Excellency to be so good as to 
inform me with reference to this letter by wire- 
less. Reply whether you agree. I remain, with 
great haste and respect, 

"DUMBA." 
PLANS FOR STRIKES 

The enclosure, or "aide memoire' 3 written in 
Hungarian outlines the scheme which the diplo- 
mat recommended. 

"I must divide the matter into two parts, 
Bethlehem and the Middle West business" (says 
this paper), "but the point of the departure is 
common in both, viz., press agitation, which is of 
the greatest importance as regards our Hun- 
garian-American workmen. It means a press 
through which we can reach both in Bethlehem 
and in the West. In my opinion we must start a 
very strong agitation on this question in Free- 
dom (Szabadsag), the leading organ, in respect 
to the Bethlehem works and the conditions there. 
This can be done in two ways and both must be 
utilized. 

"In the first place, the regular daily section 
must be devoted to the conditions obtaining there, 
and a campaign must be regularly conducted 
against these indescribably degrading conditions. 
Freedom already has done something similar in 
the recent past, when the strike movement began 
at Bridgeport. It must necessarily take the form 

207 



of strong, deliberate, decided and courageous 
action. 

"Secondly, the writer of these lines would be- 
gin a labor novel in that newspaper much on the 
lines of Sinclair's celebrated story. This might 
be published in other local Hungarian, Slovak 
and German newspapers. The Nepszava (Word 
of the People) will undoubtedly be compelled 
willingly or unwillingly to follow the movement 
initiated by Freedom, for it is pleasing the entire 
Hungarian element in America, and is an abso- 
lutely patriotic act to which that open journal, 
the Nepszava, could not adopt a hostile attitude. 
Of course, it would be another question to what 
extent and with what energy and devotion that 
newspaper would adhere to this course of action 
without regard to other influences, just as it is 
questionable to what extent other local patriotic 
papers would go. There is a great reason why, in 
spite of their patriotism, American-Hungarian 
papers hitherto have shrunk from initiating such 
action." 

"In these circumstances the first necessity is 
money. 

"Bethlehem must be sent as many reliable 
Hungarian and German workmen as we can lay 
our hands on, who will join the factories and be- 
gin their work in secret among their fellow work- 
men. For this purpose I have my men, roll- 
turners and steel workers. We must send an or- 
ganizer who in the interests of the union will 
begin the business in his own way. We must 
also send so-called 'soapbox' orators who will 
know how to start a useful agitation. We shall 
want money for popular meetings, possibly for 



organizing picnics. In general, the same applies 
to the Middle West. I am thinking of Pittsburg 
and Cleveland in the first instance, as to which T 
could give details only if I were to return and 
spend at least a few days there. I already have 
shown that much can be done with the news- 
papers. We must stir up the men's feelings in 
Bethlehem. A sensation was caused by the ar- 
ticles which appeared at the time of the strike at 
Bridgeport. They brought Bethlehem into the 
affair. 

"It is evident that the start of a movement 
from which serious results are to be expected re- 
quires a sufficiency of money at the very start. 
The extent of subsequent expenditure for the 
most part depends on the work effected. For 
example, the newspapers must not receive the 
whole sum intended for them all at once, but only 
half. To union agitators only a certain amount 
should be given at first, and a larger sum in case 
of success or of a serious strike on the formation 
of the union. It is my opinion that for the special 
object of starting the Bethlehem business and the 
Bethlehem and Western newspapers campaign 
$15,000 to $20,000 must be at our disposal, but 
it is not possible to reckon how much ultimately 
will be required. 

"When a beginning has been made, it will be 
possible to see how things develop and where and 
how much it will be worth while to spend. The 
above mentioned preliminary sum would suffice 
partially to satisfy the demands of the necessary 
newspapers and to a considerable extent those of 
the Bethlehem campaign. If circumstances are 
lucky and leadership is good, we can arrive at 
positive results in the West comparatively 

209 



cheaply, whereas Bethlehem is one of the most 
difficult jobs. 

"I will telephone at 8 A. M. ? and request you 
then to let me know where and when I can learn 
your opinion of my proposal, which requires a 
considerable amount of verbal exposition. Fi- 
nally, I make bold to point out the fact that 
hitherto I have said nothing on the subject to 
any one connected with the newspapers, and am 
in the fortunate position that in the case of giving 
effect to the plan I can make use of names in 
case of necessity, for I have already in other mat- 
ters made payments through other individuals. 
In any event, in the case of the newspapers the 
greatest circumspection is necessary. No one but 
the proprietor must know that money is coming 
to the undertaking from any source." 

EXIT DUMBA 

Following the receipt of those documents by 
the State Department, Dr. Dumba and Secre- 
tary Lansing were in conference. The Ambas- 
sador admitted he had written the letter, and had 
consigned it to the care of Captain Archibald. 
He defended his course on the ground that he was 
under orders from his home government, and that 
he wished to prevent Austro-Hungarian work- 
men from committing high treason by helping 
turn out munitions for the Allies. President 
Wilson, however, insisted on the Ambassador's 
recall, and Secretary Lansing, in his note to 
Austro-Hungary, made these charges against 
Dr. Dumba: 

"By reason of the admitted purpose and intent 
210 



of Mr. Dumba to conspire to cripple legitimate 
industries of the United States and to interrupt 
their legitimate trade, and by reason of the flag- 
rant violation of diplomatic propriety in employ- 
ing an American citizen, protected by an Amer- 
ican passport, as a secret bearer of official 
despatches through the lines of the enemy of Aus- 
tria-Hungary, the President directs us to inform 
your Excellency that Mr. Dumba is no longer 
acceptable to the Government of the United 
States as the Ambassador of his Imperial Maj- 
esty at Washington." 

After the departure of Dr. Dumba, Baron 
Zwiedinek and von Nuber began a series of ad- 
vertisements in racial newspapers, calling the 
subjects of Austro-Hungary out of the munition 
factories. If any workman wrote him regarding 
the matter, he sent a reply in which he said: "It 
is demanded that patriotism, no less than the fear 
of punishment, should cause every one to quit 
his work immediately." 



211 



CHAPTER XI 
GERMANY'S LOBBY IN CONGRESS 



P 



RESIDENT WILSON said in part in 
his Flag Day address in June, 1916: 



"There is disloyalty in the United States, and 
it must be absolutely crushed. It proceeds from 
a minority, a very small minority, but a very 
active and subtle minority. * * * If you could 
have gone with me through the space of the last 
two years and could have felt the subtle impact 
of intrigue and sedition, and have realized with 
me that those to whom you have entrusted au- 
thority are trustees not only of the power but 
also of the very spirit and purpose of the United 
States, you would realize with me the solemnity 
with which I look upon the sublime symbol of our 
unity and power." 

The President in those few words summed up 
the conspiracies of the Teutonic Powers aimed at 
the integrity of the United States. When he 
made his charge, he had back of him a vast amount 
of evidence which never has been and never will 
he made public. He had as proof the details 
of Germany's scheme to control the Congress of 
this nation and to manipulate it in a manner that 
would have rendered not only the legislative 
bodies an absolute check to the administrative 

212 



functions of the Government but "would have dic- 
tated the course of the Republic in international 
affairs just as if the United States were a depen- 
dency of the Fatherland. 

DISLOYAL CITIZENS 

"The subtle and active minority" to which the 
President made such a sensational reference is 
a group of Americans — German- Americans 
swayed by sentiment for Germany and Americans 
influenced by gold — who have been following the 
dictation of Teutonic agents in America. They 
have received orders and sought to carry them 
out. They have been puppets that worked and 
argued in the interest of the Central Powers when 
certain men pulled the strings. They have been 
active workers in carrying out clever political 
policies and agitations that were part of schemes 
devised in Berlin to benefit Germany against her 
enemy. True, there have been faithful American 
citizens who have sided with Germany's argu- 
ments — and their loyalty cannot be questioned — 
but there have been citizens who knowingly 
worked with German agents against the best in- 
terests of the nation. When a man strives and 
schemes with foreign agents against the honest 
endeavors of an American official, who is seeking 
to execute the law, he is guilty not only of dis- 
loyalty but of sedition. 

From the outset of the war Teutonic agents 
intrigued to get their clutches upon the Federal 

218 



legislative body. They schemed to use it as an 
obstacle to any move by the President. They 
sought legislation that would prevent the ship- 
ment of muntions from this country, that would 
have prevented the Allies from floating any war 
bonds in America, and that would have stopped 
Americans from sailing on passenger vessels of 
Allied merchantmen. Their aim was to make 
Congress vote and the President act just as the 
Emperor of Germany deemed most suitable to 
the interests of the Fatherland. 

To that end they tried to manipulate sentiment 
among the voters by means of insidious propa- 
ganda. They hired lobbyists to work among 
Representatives and Senators at the National 
Capitol and so thoroughly and accurately did 
these men do their work that the line-up of the 
House of Representatives and of the Senate was 
reported almost daily to Berlin on any important 
legislation bearing on Germany's interests in the 
war. They reported the change from day to day 
of any Congressman's attitude and the reason 
therefor. They strove to create a sentiment 
among the voters so that appeals would pour in 
upon Congressmen, filling them with fear of 
defeat at the polls if they did not obey what 
amounted to the Kaiser's dictation. 

At the start of the European War there began 
in Congress a vehement debate over the question 
of imposing a legislative embargo on the ship- 
ments of arms and ammunition to the Allies. 

214 



In these debates men participated who undoubt- 
edly were sincere in the convictions they ex- 
pressed. Nevertheless, they were button-holed by 
Americans working for German agents but all 
the flowery oratory in favor of "universal peace" 
proved unavailing. 

In the late winter and early spring of 1915, 
a hireling of the Germans began to seek secret 
conferences with Congressmen in a Washington 
hotel and to outline to them plans for compelling 
an embargo on muntions. Money was mentioned 
and offers were made to seven or eight different 
Congressmen. It is charged by Government of- 
ficials that a large amount of money was spent — 
but the project was in vain. 

UNDERGROUND DIPLOMACY 

Meantime, Count von Bernstorff and Dr. 
Dumba were seeking by diplomatic means to 
effect a stoppage of the flow of war equipment 
to the Allies. Each addressed appeals to the Sec- 
retary of State and each presented notes from 
his respective Government protesting against the 
shipment of munitions as unneutral. Their pro- 
tests were unavailing and the answers of the Sec- 
retary of State were so clear and determined that 
it became clear to the Teutonic agents that their 
efforts along such a channel would be without 
success. Dr. Dumba ascribes the failure of Con- 
gress to shut off the export of munitions and the 
decision of the Administration against the Teu- 

915 



tonic Powers, to the President, for in one of his 
letters to Burian he said in August, 1915 : 

"As last autumn, he (President Wilson) can 
always, through his personal influence, either 
force the House of Representatives to take his 
point of view against their better judgment, or, 
on the other hand, in the Senate can overthrow 
the resolution already voted in favor of prohibit- 
ing the export of guns and munitions. In these 
circumstances any attempt to persuade individual 
States to vote parallel resolutions through their 
legislative bodies would offer no advantages apart 
from the internal difficulties which the execution 
of this plan presents." 

With that letter Dr. Dumba enclosed a memor- 
andum adroitly suggesting the use of England's 
seizure of ships as a means of inciting Americans 
to support embargo legislation. 

"President Wilson" (he wrote) "will not hear 
of Congress laying an embargo, for the reason, 
as he clearly explains, that to do so would be un- 
neutral. The result of this is to stultify all at- 
tempts at agitation based on embargo. This is 
a matter entirely in President Wilson's hands. 
It is, of course, always possible that, despite the 
President's declaration, a resolution might be laid 
before Congress contemplating the prohibition of 
the export of munitions as a measure of reprisal 
against England for her illegal seizure of Amer- 
ican ships; but we should indulge in no illusions 
as to the success likely to attend such an enter- 
prise." 

216 



HOLDING THE CLUB TO CONGRESS 

The German agents, as has been told, did not 
cease their efforts to arouse the sentiment of the 
country, hoping to force Congress and the Presi- 
dent to take steps in the direction that the Ger- 
mans wished. 

The fear which a Representative in Congress 
has of displeasing his constituents was a factor 
carefully taken into account by the German 
agents. Every means of impressing upon a Rep- 
resentative the belief that the men who voted 
for him wanted an embargo were used. These 
were the motives behind a plan for holding an 
embargo conference in the Middle West in the 
summer of 1915. The details were carefully de- 
veloped and the conference would have been held 
had not the secret workings been divulged through 
the publication of the Albert papers. One letter 
addressed to Dr. Albert by Herr P. Reiswitz, in 
Chicago, reveals the scheme in detail and shows 
that Count von BernstorfY was aware of the inner 
organization. The letter, dated July 22, 1915, 
says in part : 

"Everything else concerning the proposed em- 
bargo conference you will find in the inclosed 
copy of the report to the Ambassador. A change 
has, however, come up, as the mass meeting will 
have to be postponed on account of there being 
insufficient time for the necessary preparations. 
It will probably be held here in about two weeks. 

"H seemed to be very strong for the 

217 



plan. He told our representative at a conference 
in Omaha: 'If this matter is organized in the right 
way you will sweep the United States.' 

"For your confidential information, I would 
further inform you that the leadership of the 
movement thus far lies in the hands of two gentle- 
men (one in Detroit and one in Chicago), who 
are firmly resolved to work toward the end that 
the German community, which, of course, will be 
with us without further urging, shall above all 
things remain in the background, and that the 
movement, to all outward appearances, shall have 
a purely American character. I have known both 
the gentlemen very well for a long time, and 
know that personal interest does not count with 
them; the results will bring their own reward." 

PULLING WIRES BEHIND SCENES 

Germans made it a point to get behind resolu- 
tions presented to Congress in the early part of 
1916 bearing on the submarine controversy. 
These measures, regardless of the aims of the 
legislators, had features that would be helpful to 
Germany in her desire to sink merchantmen on 
the high seas. 

Senator Gore introduced a resolution "to pro- 
hibit the issuance of passports for use on vessels 
of a belligerent country," and another bill "to 
prohibit a belligerent vessel from transporting 
American citizens as passengers to or from ports 
in the United States and to prohibit American 
and neutral vessels from transporting American 
citizens as passengers and contraband of war at 

218 



one and the same time." Representative Stephens 
of Nebraska and Representative McLemore also 
introduced bills and resolutions of similar char- 
acter. 

This lobbying and other secret propaganda in 
Congress was designed to render the President 
powerless in his demands upon Germany to cease 
torpedoing passenger ships. The Germans almost 
succeeded in getting Congress to enact resolu- 
tions, forbidding Americans to travel on such 
passenger vessels. While this legislation was 
under discussion, Berlin was kept accurately in- 
formed concerning the attitude of both the House 
and the Senate on those measures. The schemes 
of the Germans, however, fell through and Presi- 
dent Wilson was upheld in his policy. 

After President Wilson had sent his ultimatum 
to Germany, insisting that the attacks on pas- 
senger ships and merchantmen, in violation of 
the rules of international law cease, the entire 
horde of German propagandists, German spies 
and German sympathizers were lined up in a 
countrywide appeal to Congress to maintain di- 
plomatic relations with Germany, no matter what 
her answer to America's note might be. By a 
systematic scheme put into operation throughout 
the country, thousands of telegrams were sent to 
members of Congress and of the Senate beseech- 
ing harmonious relations with Germany. In the 
majority of instances these telegrams were ac- 
cording to formula and all the sender had to do 

919 



was to sign his name to it. The telegraph charges 
were paid by an organization financed by German 
agents. 

But their pleas were not needed, for Germany, 
facing at last — after many months of exchange 
of notes — the anger of the American people, 
finally yielded on the submarine question and the 
Lusitania controversy. All of Germany's legisla- 
tive propaganda and secret work had been futile. 
The exposure of the activities of her agents re- 
sulted only in causing many neutral Americans 
to revolt against her. 



220 



CHAPTER XII 
CHANGING THE SYSTEM 

AFTER all the ramifications of the Teu- 
tonic system in America had been un- 
earthed through the work of the Federal 
authorities, an order went forth to the spies to 
cease activities that were in violation of the laws. 
Meantime, the Chief Spy in Berlin began im- 
mediately to construct an entirely new system of 
espionage, for use in an emergency. The remnant 
of the old system, however, was kept at hand for 
the furthering of propaganda and such activities 
as could not arouse the objection of the Govern- 
ment, even though detected. 

Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador, 
took steps following the seizure of the von Igel 
papers, rather the papers showing the director- 
ship of the system in America, to issue a warning 
to all Germans of the necessity of leading a 
purely and righteously neutral life. He sent forth 
a statement, which had been prepared by an at- 
torney in New York, to all German consuls in the 
country, and took care to see that the State De- 
partment obtained a copy of this notice. The 
notice, dated sometime in the early spring of 
1916, said: 

221 



"In consequence of cases which have occurred 
of late, German Ambassador Bernstorff sent in- 
structions to all German Consuls in the United 
States to strongly impress on German citizens 
living in their districts that it is their duty scrup- 
ulously to obey the laws of the states in which 
they reside." 

That notice, however, was simply a subterfuge 
employed by the Chief Spy in Berlin to throw 
Americans off his trail. In December, 1915, fol- 
lowing the arrest of Paul Koenig and other Ger- 
man agents, a formal notice was sent forth from 
Berlin asserting that no citizen of Germany ever 
had been asked to disobey any laws. But that 
statement had proved merely a blind to cover 
other activities in the United States. With the 
seizure of the von Igel-von Papen papers, how- 
ever, it had become necessary to make a strategic 
retreat, so to speak, and to rebuild' the spy 
system.* 

The necessity of such a move is clear because 
of the fact that the papers, documents and other 
evidence developed by the Secret Service and 
other Federal agents proved that the warriors 
and statesmen of Germany had, at the outset of 
the war, decided upon a campaign in America to 
injure the Allies and to weaken the American 
Government. The General War Staff had at 
their disposal in America a vast army of German 
reservists and secret agents, and straightway set 

•How a new system was devised and how Americans were employed 
to gather information about the Allies is now coming to light. Still more 
startling revelations of plans for attacks upon the United States will 
shortly be unfolded. 

222 



them to work upon plans in violation of American 
laws. 

TWO AND A HALF YEARS OF HIGH TREASON 

Go back over the events since 1914, and study 
them in the light of the moves made by Germany 
or by her secret agents here, and you will realize 
how, in America, Germany has had a hand in 
practically every domestic or foreign event of 
any importance. Her agents sought to control 
the Congress. They planned trouble between 
the United States and Meooico with the aim of 
stopping the shipment of war supplies to the 
Allies, and of getting this country so absorbed in 
other matters that we could not call Germany 
to account for her murderous submarine warfare. 
They fomented trouble among laboring men. 
They schemed to bring about seditious uprisings 
in Cuba, and in the dependencies of the Allies, 
using this country as a base of operations. 

By means of this secret organization, Germany 
carried on the scheme of buying fraudulent pass- 
ports for the use of her reservists, developed a 
scheme for the illegal provisioning of the German 
cruisers, set on foot various military enterprises 
from the United States against Canada, schemed 
to destroy munition factories in America, to blow 
up merchantmen of the Allies sailing from Amer- 
ican ports — and planned crimes of bribery, arson 
and assault. 

But the alertness of the American Secret 

223 



Service and the Bureau of Investigation of the 
Department of Justice prevented the consumma- 
tion of these plans. There was need for a shifting 
of the Germanic spies. Immediately after the 
publication of Count von Bernstorff's warning, 
an exodus of known spies to South America be- 
gan, and the development of an effective system 
of espionage in every country in South America 
is now under way. 

America's vital question 

The great question that confronts the Amer- 
ican people is one of preparedness against this 
or a like system. Any foreign government that 
knows the moves of the United States before they 
are made is in a position to do the country much 
harm in peace, and tremendously greater harm in 
war. In view of the crimes perpetrated by Ger- 
mans and Austrians in America in 1914, 1915 
and 1916, it behooves the American Government 
to take steps to destroy the system, root and 
branch; to see to it that no nation ever builds up 
a similar system in these United States. 

This Government must take such steps as 
will insure it against treachery from within. The 
citizens of the United States must stand in time 
of danger as one man in defense of our lives, our 
liberties, our rights on land and sea, our homes 
and our national honor. 



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